Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Dean Peters's avatar

This isn’t misalignment. It’s a networking flywheel of dysfunction:

- Teams scream overload

- Middle says “we’re good”

- Execs ask what to cut

- Everyone panics, says nothing

- New dashboard launched to track the silence

It’s alignment theater. With jazz hands.

Expand full comment
Jeff Grigg's avatar

Something I've done successfully with a "managing up" approach is that when my superiors tell me that everything is all equally Urgent, Important, and Top Priority, I take a look at all of it myself, and report to them, in a document, the priorities that I will be working.

If they will not set the priorities, I will.

Usually, at that point, they do actually talk with me about their actual priorities.

I've heard from others who do this and *deliberately* say they'll pursue an *obviously bad* priority order. I wouldn't, as (1) I don't want to appear incompetent, and (2) they might just (either blindly or maliciously) approve the bad priorities, and then I'd have to live (and die) with them!

Also, when they crash in with emergencies, I update the priorities to put that on top, showing how everything else has moved down. They object, of course. But unless they have something more to say than, "You can't do that! We have to have it all, now, equally!!!" then I'm not listening.

Expand full comment
2 more comments...

No posts