AntiPattern Name: ConfusionOfObjectives
Type: Management pattern
Problem: The personal objectives of the manager leading a team are not in line with the team objectives and they are considered more important than the success of the team tasks (typically a project).
Context: The manager cannot focus on the main task he was given because of important personal elements outside of the main task context he has on his radar (promotion, political fight, pay raise, better job, personal threat to address, etc.).
Forces: The forces applying in that case are related to the personal agenda of the manager :
- Personal advantage related forces: the manager is looking for a big reward, a much better job position, or an advantage of some sort the manager wants to get for his own benefit.
- Personal threat related forces: the manager is under a stress of some threat that he must address, and so a lot of time will be spent outside his basic areas of responsibilities.
Supposed Solution: The manager tries to make the team work for the sake of his personal objectives and not for the sake of the common task to perform. He tries to divert the teams from their primary focus to be able to work on his personal agenda. The manager is bound to turn things political or to delay some important decisions because it fits in his personal agenda.
Resulting Context:
- The manager will have to have a double speech, confusing objectives of the common task with personal objectives wrapped up as if they were an extension of the common ones.
- Some common tasks necessary decisions will not taken in time. The parallel front opened leads to some delay that can be visible by team members who are asking themselves what is going on.
- The teams will be asking about the common task strategy because they will feel the manager behaves in an incoherent manner.
- The manager is spending a lot of energy to cover his tracks while ensuring that the main task that he is given is not a total disaster (ControllingWithoutControl?).
Design Rationale: [rationale]
Related AntiPatterns:
Applicable Positive Patterns:
AntiPatternCategory: ManagementAntiPattern
Also Known As: [other names]
Examples in the Literature:
Examples in Practice:
Big projects are typically the place for those kind of behaviors because if the project shows some complexity, it's quite easy to cover your tracks. I faced numerous samples in my carrier.
- First sample : an IT director tried to ensure his challenged position (threat) in a big project by degrading his own skilled team versus an unskilled marketing team (the customer) that had important political connections. The behavior of the IT director was to ask from his team both to do the job wrongly and not to complain about the fact to do it the wrong way. This happened in a huge software company context.
- The second sample I faced was a challenged IT director trying to solve IT problems with an exclusive contractual approach despite the fact that contractual fights were having a daily negative effect on the IT teams reporting to him. The reason for that behavior was to try to get a promotion (becoming a CIO) and so illustrate his competences in a field that was understandable by non IT directors (contract fights). OlivierRey
It can be the root cause for:
CategoryAntiPattern, CategoryManagementAntiPattern
Confusion Of Objectives