'I Only Care For Results' syndrome

"I don't care how you do it; I just care for results" she said proudly to her team, as if she had given them a magic wand to solve their problems!

I have been hearing this more often than I would like to admit from couple of senior members across the industry; be it Managerial or Technical role

This culture usually starts from the Top, when the Executive tells his next level Manager, "I need this release to go in six months and Anu no lame excuses - Get the job done"

Anu to her Front line Manager, "Mike, we have an amazing opportunity to prove our salt!"

"Yet again, Anu?", a perplexed but not entirely surprised Mike

"Huh, get your team to gear up for the Product release in 5 months"

"5 months? We haven't even frozen the requirements, then there are the dependancies. Our suppliers would need at least 2 months, after which we would need at least another 4 months to work on it"

"I don't care what you do Mike, we need to be ahead of the competition, we need to get this Product out. No is not an answer"

"Ok, I'll see what can be done"

Mike to his young team, "Guys, our product is the lifeline for our company, Management wants us to

 release it in 4 months; we may have to extend on weekends too..."

"... but Mike, that's impossible, we need to work on the entire architecture, resolve the dependencies and work on understanding the user behaviour..."

"Yeah I understand and I trust you guys can do it"

"But we need to..."

"I don't care what needs to be done, we need to show results to Management", says Mike in a stern voice

"ummph... but..."

"and oh by the way, ensure you guys send me a daily status update mail at 8 PM and on Monday's we shall have the status meeting; Ashok, book the meeting room before someone blocks it"

Does this sound familiar? If yes, your organisation has been bitten by the 'I Only Care For Results' syndrome

This is a cancerous disease that quickly spreads down through the organisation ladder. Not surprisingly, the bug stops with the team of 0 to 3 years less experienced members to figure out what needs to be done to meet the Project Objectives!

What some Seniors fail to realise is that senior positions are more than only showing direction. Each of them are employed to utilise their past experience and provide hands-on solutions for the less experienced members and guide them to success. Unfortunately, some wear the CEO hat and focuses only in giving directions rather than solutions

The problem here is not with the challenging goal but how no one offers a practical solution of how the team can achieve the objective

God save these teams!