Sydney thought for a moment. “We just promoted Justin to Team Leader. The rest of the guys on the crew say he is breathing down their necks. He is obviously not ready to be a full supervisor, and we are losing his productivity as a machine operator.”
“And?” I prodded.
“And I really don’t know what to do,” Sydney replied.
“Let’s look again at your instructions to Justin. You said if a team member has a problem, help them solve it, if they have a question, answer it and make sure all the work gets done by the end of the day. And yet, you said he was not ready to be a supervisor? Sounds like you gave him supervisor tasks, but you already know he is struggling with those tasks.”
“Yes, but, if we are going to have the team report to Justin..” Sydney stopped. “So, I took my lead technician and tried to make him a supervisor, even though we already have a supervisor. It looked good on paper.”
“Actually, it didn’t look good on paper. You have 112 employees and twelve layers,” I observed.
“I know, I said 112,” Sydney explained. “Now it’s 110, two people quit this morning.”
It is an almost universal disease of bureaucratic systems that have too many levels of organization. – Elliott Jaques
This excessive layering causes so much confusion, and then management wonders why people aren’t happy and the org is struggling with sustainment and customer acquisition. Your example is all too common.