The Package Myth: When Blokes Obsess Over Hardware – Part 6 – Management

And now to Management. In our personal and professional lives, we all know THE MANAGER (capital letters entirely deliberate). The person in control, the one you turn to when you've got 90 seconds before the train leaves and you need telling which platform to leg it to—delivered in that calm, authoritative voice that sorts everything.

Your Manager at work, the one you turn to for encouragement or when some unreasonable stakeholder from another department is giving you grief—they sweep in and sort it all out.

The supermarket delivery Manager who'll still get your shopping to you even when the van's broken down, the tank's empty and all four tyres are flat. How? By carrying your bags on their back, of course.

The Manager oversees everything; it all runs perfectly when the Manager's in charge. The Manager doesn't sleep, doesn't eat, is never cold or knackered, never anxious or frazzled, never angry or sad.

Emotions? What emotions? Who needs them when you're THE MANAGER? Everything's resolved through pure rational thought—there's nothing that can't be solved just by willing it so. It practically manifests before your astonished eyes.

It's rather like the script of some American superhero franchise—brilliant the first time round, rakes in millions at the cinema, then gets rehashed over and over until the story's so tired that only the CGI is worth discussing, and you might as well wait until it's on streaming rather than pay for a cinema ticket.

THE MANAGER is the CEO, the Chief Ego Officer, in charge of, well, the Project that is YOU.

This character will bully the Executive Board until it performs as the CEO expects. And the Board is all too eager to play the 'yes' men, terrified of displeasing the CEO—even when what's expected is unreasonable, destructive, even when it means pressuring the very Project they're meant to serve.

Who is the Ex-Co? Your environment, really. The messages you absorbed growing up from parents, extended family, mates and peers. Media, magazines, advertising, other blokes caught in the same trap—all playing their part in dictating how you must perform.

And when you question who's actually setting the objectives for Project YOU, the CEO won't take any responsibility, and the Ex-Co starts the blame game that ends with shaming YOU. No surprise there.

As the suits at the top are lashing out at each other, the Ops Teams receive contradictory and confusing messages. The beautifully crafted, well-oiled infrastructure starts and stops, maintenance falls by the wayside, until it doesn't know if it's cumming or going and grinds to a halt.

Enter reduced sexual drive, arousal difficulties (ED, DE, EE), performance anxiety, unwanted or involuntary responses and the list goes on.

Now you have a choice to make, let the CEO rule Project YOU or fire him and get your power back by focussing on what you want and implementing sustainable change!

Next time we dive deeper into the link between the out-of-touch Management and the under-appreciated Ops Teams.