Sunday 12 August 2012

What Not To Do When You're A Boss

Inspired by having a tremendously crap boss, here are some of the things that me and my colleagues came up with that good bosses should never do.  To all you rubbish bosses out there please take note, one day you will get your comeuppance if you don't take heed and change your ways.

Don't Keep Saying "I get that" or "I understand" in a rude abrupt tone when you clearly don't have the foggiest idea about what is going on or the point that the person is trying to make.

Don't keep saying that your employee 'owns' a project . Especially when they clearly don't as you will stick your oar in wherever you can regardless of whether you know what you are doing. We all know that an   employee 'owning' a project is another way for you to dodge any blame should anything go wrong. It's all about protecting your managerial ass.

Don't defer every minor decision to Group so that again you have no accountability. It's obvious you are clueless so wrapping everything in a serious amount of pointless red tape does not hide your general cluelessness.  It shows it up even more.

Stop using meaningless jargon. I work in marketing and don't understand what the hell you are going on about so what hope is there for the people in the business who are not marketeers. Get real, stop using jargon to disguise the fact again that you are clueless.  The characters in the fantastic beeb series twenty twelve could easily be inspired by you; pointless slogans, pointless lines, pointless jargon, just pointless. And no the use of jargon cannot hide the crap ideas that you are coming up with.  Innovator - my arse!! (Homage to Eddy Royale from the Royale Family.

Do not belittle others - it's not clever, it's not smart. Correcting people continuously who are from overseas when they are running a meeting is not good. It does not make you look big, just rude.

Learn something about the industry that you work in. Your lack of knowledge and pointless points is quite frankly embarrassing. All your ideas from other industries need to be tailored to the industry you are now in.  If they're not, they won't work.  Wake up, the business is in no state for you to screw things up even further.

At least know something about marketing.  With a switched on team like ours we soon sussed you out.  Responding to every problem saying "how would you do it?" is a tell tale sign that you are in over your head. It might take a while for others within the business to suss you out but believe me, your whole team has.