“I’m tired,” Jerrold explained. “I’m trying to keep up with everything, but the faster I work, the behinder I get,” he smiled.

“What’s up?” I asked. (Advanced diagnostic question.)

“I feel like I am buried in work, my team is up to their elbows and, still, there is more to be done. Burned out. That’s how I feel. I know we have downsized. I know we all have to pitch in and cover. But there are times, when I feel overwhelmed.”

“Are you doing the production work? Or are you making sure the production work gets done?” I followed.

“Both. It’s my responsibility to make sure the production work gets done, but we are short handed, so I spend my turn on the line as well.” Jerrold sat up.

“Is this an energy problem, or an organization problem?”

“How do you discourage the end-run employee?” Joann complained. “I often get team members bypassing their manager and bringing their decisions to me. I don’t want to undercut the authority of their manager, but they have real issues and say they are not getting the support they need.”

“They are not getting the support they need, or they are not getting the support they want?” I asked. “As a child, if I didn’t get the support I wanted from mom (using the car on Friday night), I always went to Dad.”

“I don’t think that’s the case. It’s pretty easy to tell when I am being played. This is more serious.”

“What do you need to know? What do you think you need to do?”

Joann grimaced. “I think I need to put my foot down, send them back to their manager. For once, maybe, I can be too busy. I just need to stop this behavior.”

“And what if the problem isn’t with the team member? What if the problem is with their manager? What if this end-around behavior is a symptom of something that needs more attention?”

“I’m worried,” Lydia explained. “It’s like the tv show ‘Survivor.’ I used to think, how contrived. A group of people get together and vote to throw someone off the island. Who does that?”

I was quiet. Lydia looked up and continued.

“The tv show had to throw someone off the island, because it was a rule of the game. I always thought, if it were me, I would refuse to vote.

“But, here we are. I have to vote someone off the island. Only it’s not a vote. I have to decide. And I have to decide before Friday. This is a tough decision.”

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“First of all, Sylvia, every company is a real company, even a company of three,” I replied. “As companies grow larger, the structure of how they work together becomes more complicated, for better or for worse.”

“Well, we have a good sized company,” Sylvia responded. “We have supervisors, managers, vice-presidents and a CEO. And we have an organizational chart.”

“So, let’s talk about those relationships and how they work best. A line worker reports to a supervisor or a supervisor reports to a manager. What is the nature of the relationship? What do they talk about?”

Sylvia struggled to describe this. Everyone knows, magically, how this reporting relationship works, but describing it is difficult.

“They talk about problems,” Sylvia started. “Problems with the work.”

“Or successes with the work,” I picked up. “But their relationship is around the work. It’s all about the work. This reporting relationship is an accountability relationship.”

Sylvia nodded.

“As a manager, when you have a conversation with a line worker, you are the Manager Once Removed. What is this conversation about? What is the nature of this relationship?”

“That’s what Vince objected to,” Sylvia quickly protested. “I felt that it was an appropriate conversation, but when Vince objected, I didn’t know what to say.”

“That’s because Vince was wrong. What is the nature of the relationship of the Manager Once Removed?” -TF

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“He said that I was undermining his authority, that if I had anything to say to one of his team members, I needed to go through him and he would deliver the message. Otherwise, he said, Hands Off.” Sylvia was off balance. “I didn’t know what to say.”

“What did you say?” I asked.

“Well, I told him I was sorry, that I didn’t realize I had overstepped my bounds on his team and that I would try to be more considerate in the future.”

“And how did he respond?”

“He started talking about professionalism and that if I had worked where he used to work, that I would have been written up,” Sylvia replied.

“So, this place where he used to work, was this some sort of policy, that managers could only engage people one layer down in the organization?”

“Exactly. He said that if I had worked for a real company, I would have known that.”