When the Cat's away the mice will play - 2007 Management Conference

Each year at the company I work for there is an event called The Management Conference. The name gives away what it is, but to elaborate it's a day when all the managers and directors of the company meet up at a external location to discuss, analyse and attempt to improve the manner in which the company is managed.

This is what they would love you to believe, realistically its more like a giant wine tasting contest, except you swallow the wine and skip the sniffing, gargling and spitting part. Of course all those who are not managers remain at work, keeping the business running. Which brings me to my key point, do we need so many managers?

The company I work in seems to have this incessant need to appoint a manager for every aspect of work, I am sure we have a manager for 'Lavatory Activities'. It's so apparent today how many managers there are in the business because the office is nearly empty. Is there really a need for so many managers?

I don't think there is, in fact I find it so irritating that a company feels the need to glorify so many people with the 'manager' title. When I previously worked for an American company they seemed to have appointed nearly everyone who was a step down from president level to vice-president. So there was a vice-president of Accounts, HR, IT, Advertising, Marketing etc etc. These VP's, as they were so dutifully called, just seem to meander around the office appearing to do nothing. I am sure they were very busy and produced critical reports, but was there really a need to appoint so many.

Maybe I am being a little naive, but the departmental structure has to be drawn into question, when you have to make contact with four 'Managers' to actually get a purchase order raised and completed for a new laptop.

It is my belief that processes in any company should be as simplified as possible with as few interactions with different people. For example if you wanted to order a laptop, a 2-tier contact process should occur and the item is purchased. You need to confer on a report, then speak directly to the person who will be making use of that report, producing a 1-tier contact process. I feel anything above 3-tiers of contact results in changes, problems and ideas becoming diluted, it develops into a chinese whispers scenario.

I am sure most companies are managed efficiently, just the current one I am in seems to have lost the plot somewhere.

So today I am going to do nothing, at midday head to the company bar and chill with some beer and discuss the potential problems of the recent House of Lords ruling on unmarried couples and the division of their assets with people who have no idea what I am talking about. If a server crashes I will advise people they first have to speak to the IT Helpdesk Manager, who will then confer with the IT Network Manager, who in turn will need to speak to the IT Systems Manager, who will discuss this with the IT Operations Manager, a change control will then need to be raised for a tiny windows update which takes 1min to install. Finally I will state they will have to wait as all the managers are at The Management Conference 2007, bring on my law degree please....