Thanks for stopping by. Interesting comment. I think you are on to something here. Thanks for the comment.

Regards,

Michelle

Very senior managers often underestimate the impact of the change because, at the top, not much changes, everyone still works for you.

It’s usually the next level down who feel the loss of power and often spend time trying to get back the level of control they used to have in the old structure

Legacy behaviours like this are hard to deal with

Sounds like you are in a tough situation. In my humble opinion, the proper structure is for each person to have ONE, and only one, manager. Employees can certainly complete assignments for others, if it is approved by the manager. And, the assigner should go to the manager, not the employee to get clearance to assign the task. In the case of on-going or frequently recurring tasks, the manager can specify that the assigner need no longer come to the manager each time he needs the employee to do THIS PARTICULAR THING. The employee who is acting as a service provider to people other than his boss should take care of assignments on a first come, first served basis. Again, if the assigner want preferential treatment, it should be cleared by the employees manager. Hope this helps. You are right to be concerned.

Regards,

Michelle

Welcome. Thanks for you comment and for joining MMM via subscription. I look forward to a continuing dialog with you.

I’m all about paying attention to systems, processes and capabilities. As I say, I’m OK. You’re OK. Let’s fix the system.

Regards,

Michelle

I just stumbled across your blog from the latest Hr carnival, read a few posts, and will be back for sure. (I subscribed).

As for working in the dreaded ?matrix?:
Every organizational structure has its inherent flaws. The key is to put systems, processes and capabilities in place to minimize the flaws the best you can. I?ve worked in large, global matrixed organizations. It requires a high degree of collaboration and agility, but it can work.

Thanks for the article. After you are in a matrix organization, there are certainly things you can do to make things more palatable as your article points out. I view them as coping mechanisms for poor design. I think we could be much more effective if we fixed the design.

Thanks for the comment.

Regards,

Michelle

Good posts, you may find the article below on multiple bosses and matrix working useful too

http://www.lifeinamatrix.com/matrix-management-skills-4-managing-multiple-bosses/

Thanks for the comments. I have a friend at church whose organization just implemented dual-leadership. He knew it wouldn’t work, and he shares the war stories with me because he knows I can appreciate them.

As it turns out, dual-leadership didn’t work. So what did they do? The went to four-way leadership!! If two bosses don’t work, give someone four! I’ll keep you posted.

Michelle Malay Carter