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Trying to get ahead with an incompetent boss

T

thatsright

Diamond Member
My Boss has 6 direct reports and I am one of them. I work in IT with my own team of 12 people that report to me. All of his other direct reports agree he is a total space cadet. Inept and just coasting until retirement. He can never make up his mind in a timely fashion. One great example is how its taken 16 months to come up with a firm mobile device policy for our company. You have to have multiple meetings on the same subject and just when you think you've made some progress he ask the same questions again. The major issue is zero direction from him which kills morale. Maddening.

Of all the groups in all of IT, our team handles the most support and projects by far. No contest. We are understaffed and overloaded. What I was thinking is how to present to his boss to move our team out from under his responsibility. We woud have to look like we would be doing him, and HIS boss, a favor my moving so many people out from under him. We are thinking of selling the idea that he is just to busy. Too overloaded. Things like this. We really need to tactfully sell the value in our mutual separation and have our own 'tree' on our org chart.

Can any of you suggest ways to go about this?
 
I can already tell you this isn't going to go well. The number of reports, both direct and indirect, its pretty much the measure of a managers success. It never looks good when a manager loses people, I think you'll find it very difficult to convince him it's in his best interest.
 
99% of the bosses in my years of working have been incompetent. They could kiss ass with the best of them. Which means their bosses were also incompetent. A vicious cycle it is.
 
This reminds me of a situation I was in a few years ago. My company reorganized some things and moved the team I was on under a new VP. This new VP was a complete idiot with no ability to manage an IT group. My immediate manager who reported to him went to the company CTO to try to get our group moved from under that VP. Instead that manager got moved to a new group and a "yes man" got moved to our team as the new manager. And this new guy was even more useless than the VP as far as managing an IT team. And I got stuck under this new manager almost 2 years.
 
People dont become managers and bosses because they are smart and know what they are doing, they get there by kissing butt and "networking".
 
My [previously] incompetent boss is now my [current] incompetent director. Still living with the repercussions of his actions/decisions from two years ago.
 
Slew Foot said:
People dont become managers and bosses because they are smart and know what they are doing, they get there by kissing butt and "networking".
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This.

When I was growing up, my mom used to tell me the importance of "networking" and socializing at company functions. I pretty much ignored her and thought she was full of crap and that my abilities would move me up quickly. How naïve I was! If you're a rock star/A player, you're likely going to be stuck doing the same job as long as they can keep you there. At one company, the HR department even accused my boss of holding me back.
 
There should be a written and unwritten rule in engineering projects: GTFO of managing them if you have ZERO experience in the field work.
 
StrangerGuy said:
There should be a written and unwritten rule in engineering projects: GTFO of managing them if you have ZERO experience in the field work.
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Last company I was at hired a new CIO who was (is) a complete dumbass. The guy literally had 2 years of management experience but he had 3 silly degrees and that somehow made him the pick.
 
If you're that awesome, you should be able to find a better fit as a project manager elsewhere.

Tell bosses boss why you're pursuing opportunities elsewhere.
 
Could any of you offer other suggestions on how to get un-F'ed? One option of course, is to get a new job somewhere else. But at this time its not a viable option.
 
thatsright said:
Could any of you offer other suggestions on how to get un-F'ed? One option of course, is to get a new job somewhere else. But at this time its not a viable option.
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Legally speaking, there's probably nothing you can do. By that I mean you could pull some illegal things to get him out, but that's pretty low and dirty.

You're likely stuck with this guy, esp. if he's got "tenure" at the company.

And almost ever manager type I know at my large company is a total fuck face. They get nothing done, yet somehow keep getting raises. We are always behind schedule and over budget.
 
THis is a top down architecture where the shit lands on the bottom. Turd cant go from the bottom to try to change the top.

if the turd wants to try to change toilets like you are doing, the only way to accomplish that kind of single re-org exception is to alter your responsibilities and direction as a department where you change to align with another department's responsibilities or grow so big/important that you form your own.

In other words, keep shoveling shit.
 
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Peter Principle in action.

In an organizational structure, the assessment of the potential of an employee for a promotion is often based on their performance in the current job which results eventually in their being promoted to their highest level of competence and potentially then to a role in which they are not competent, referred to as their "level of incompetence". The employee has no chance of further promotion, thus reaching his or her career's ceiling in an organization.
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The same experience was described as early as 1767 by Gotthold Ephraim Lessingin his comedy Minna von Barnhelm translated from German to English: “To become more than a sergeant? I don't consider it. I am a good sergeant; I might easily make a bad captain, and certainly an even worse general. One knows from experience.”

In the 1910s José Ortega y Gasset suggested that: "All public employees should be demoted to their immediately lower level, as they have been promoted until turning incompetent".

A similar theory was proposed by Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert cartoon series. In his 1996 book, The Dilbert Principle, Adams suggested that "the least smart people are promoted, simply because they’re the ones you don't want doing actual work." In other words, people are promoted because of their incompetence in their current role, rather than their competence.
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thatsright said:
Could any of you offer other suggestions on how to get un-F'ed? One option of course, is to get a new job somewhere else. But at this time its not a viable option.
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Typically these scenarios are self correcting over time. While it may not be apparent, someone is noticing your value and the lack of value of others. Speaking up and doing a skip level to report the ineffectiveness of your boss can be risky. Should you do a skip level, you should explain your ideas and how you want to introduce change. This is usually what drives re-orgs. Keep in mind the higher you go, much importance is around effective balance of budget, strategy and innovation.
 
It's going to be hard to get ahead if you don't get along with your boss. Trying to undermine his authority won't look good either to the higher up.
 
Yeah, I've got one of these too. He's really slow at getting things done and has no backbone when dealing with our suppliers. He's been trying two years to get us access to the CCTV highway cameras. He recently got taken off the project, they brought an expert in, and now it's supposed to be getting done today. On the bright side he's really flexible with our schedules. So if I want to take a vacation or swap a shift, he's quite accommodating.
 
Self-correcting... LOL. Either you've been very fortunate in your career or you're very inexperienced, I have no idea which. Dilbert is the rule rather than the exception when it comes to workplace dynamics.

OP, I would tactfully try the official channels for change. By that I mean, make your suggestions but lead the discussion in such a way that they think your ideas are theirs and they have no idea what you're up to. Incompetent bosses are typically extremely petty and resistant to change, so that may be your only chance at convincing them.

If that fails it's probably time to start looking for other career opportunities, or to start undermining your boss. If you can make it painfully obvious to their bosses that he's useless they may replace them, pressure them to pick up the slack, or give you and your peers more authority. But not only is exposing/undermining very risky, in my experience, incompetence is often systemic; idiots stay in power because they're being managed by idiots. If that's the case all the way up the chain there's nothing to do but move on.
 
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sounds like your whole company is full of fail.

- crappy bosses
- understaffed
- overloaded with work

you should probably find a new job, it'll make you a lot happier than worrying about the dumb shit going on at your job.
 
BoberFett said:
The tears of the worker bees are delicious. Now work harder. I need a bigger bonus.
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You might be a great manager. But take it from someone who has worked for several Fortune 500 companies and just resigned last year from a very well known sports organization -- you are in the minority. I've worked for one great manager my entire career and had a couple of others who were pretty good. My last company had the worst managers I've ever seen. I mean seriously, who hires a CIO who has 2 whole years of management experience?
 
IndyColtsFan said:
You might be a great manager. But take it from someone who has worked for several Fortune 500 companies and just resigned last year from a very well known sports organization -- you are in the minority. I've worked for one great manager my entire career and had a couple of others who were pretty good. My last company had the worst managers I've ever seen. I mean seriously, who hires a CIO who has 2 whole years of management experience?
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I'm sure there are plenty of bad managers. There are also plenty of terrible workers. But the sour grapes coming from the workers who cry "waaaah, managers all kiss ass to get ahead" is simply amusing.
 
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