Do you have an insufferable boss? Do you constantly find yourself working until the wee hours of the morning, while your co-workers are lounging around? Find yourself nodding in unison when you read about Dilbert and his co-workers? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, congratulations – you got a Pointy Haired Boss (PHB).
But the abuse must be stopped. As a wise man once said, if you want to beat a PHB, you have to be a PHB first. Thus, the collective intelligence of existing co-workers (or what remains of it) has managed to identify seven key phrases that PHBs use around the world, and then pass them on to their colleagues so that PHBs can be more easily identified. in the workplace before they do more damage.
So the next time you hear someone mutter these words, be careful: he or she has the makings of an effective PHB, or already is.
1. “I don’t know.”
This is the killer phrase at all times. The PHB cleverly manipulates your strong sense of responsibility and naivety by not answering your questions, forcing you to go the extra mile. In all likelihood, you will be doing unnecessary, tedious, and unpaid work for 90% of your time while on the job, while your boss still has a higher salary than you for not doing any work. This is what PHBs call effective management.
2. “Don’t you understand me?”
The PHB forces you to make a judgment on your own, and if the project is a success, it will take credit; But if it is a complete failure, then he blames you for misinterpreting his opinion. It’s a one-way arrow that the PHB shoots to convict the guy he hates.
3. “Why are you such a failure?”
For a PHB, “others” are always the source of problems and failures. So when the team is criticized for not doing its job, a true PHB will deftly fade into the background while pointing the finger at team members outdoors. Hopefully, coworkers will be overwhelmed by your guilt and sense of responsibility in such a way that they take all the blame off the boss. For PHBs, management amounts to making negative comments when and when they feel like it. It’s called communication.
4. “I’m busy, let’s talk another day.”
Why would a PHB in the upper echelons of management want to speak to a lowly employee who is far, far below the hierarchy of the organization chart? Talking is for losers, they reason. They hope that the lack of communication also gives them a valid reason to be out of the picture when something bad happens later. At that point, they will say, “The manager never told me anything, how could I know?”
5. “Don’t ask. They pay you to work, not to ask questions.”
When coworkers are finally able to talk to their PHBs, the PHB may not even know the problem existed in the first place. But effective PHBs do not show their great lack of knowledge; that would be detrimental. Instead, they use a mysterious aura called “top management thinking” to mask their complete lack of information and to convince workers to solve the problem themselves.
6. “Why would you need to know what you are doing?”
Years ago there was a Dilbert comic strip that best illustrated this principle. Tina, the technical writer, wanted to be an engineer, but Alice, the only engineer working at PHB, convinced her to become a manager. This is your side of the argument.
Alice: It takes years of training to be an engineer, but a manager doesn’t need training. It’s like having the unskilled control qualified employees.
7. “Thank you.”
The PHB likes to use this word more. On the one hand, it sounds like a well-deserved compliment. On the other hand, it tells you that you are responsible for doing more unnecessary work. In the future, he will just throw a lot of work at you and thank you, and walk away before you have a chance to turn him down.