script monkey: business solutions using digital intelligence 
Script Monkey's Philosophy in Business
Script Monkey management has decades of senior management experience and occasionally opines on philosophy, psychology and the human condition.
Having sat at the helm of a large construction company with thousands of staff and workers, I often reflect on what makes people tick. Indeed, I still reflect on what makes me tick and how I came to quick decisions when constantly under pressure for results.
How do senior managers make decisions under pressure?
I realised that I used to follow some simple rules:
- I would always delegate to someone who was already busy.
- I would always thank someone for their efforts, even though it might not have been how I would have done it.
- I would always try to teach some of my tricks, but never all of them!
- If someone made excuses for a problem, delay, or issue, I would rarely ask them to do something beyond their role after that.
Some of this might seem harsh, but when you have seconds to process important issues, decide and move to the next issue, snap decisions become the norm. What a senior manager looks for is people who take some strain and can be trusted to deliver a result, without constant follow-ups.
If it takes more than a few seconds to make a decision, there is less time for the next decision, so top management often take the path of least resistance. If you have burned too much of the boss's time previously, you might find the boss less conversational in future.
Why do managers put people in boxes?
The same pressure explains something most staff sense but rarely hear said out loud. Managers sort people into groups very quickly: the reliable ones, the ones who need chasing, the ones who bring problems rather than answers. Once the lines are drawn, they are rarely revisited, simply because there is no time. It is not personal, it is triage. The danger is that a single bad week, or one excuse at the wrong moment, can put you in a box that takes months to climb out of.
How can you get ahead in an organisation?
My advice to anyone wanting to get on in an organisation is utterly counter-intuitive:
- Always ask for more work.
- Always stop what you are doing to help those around you, especially if they are stuck.
- Never lie or omit the truth.
- Never complain about the boss, the work or your colleagues, especially the ones you dislike. Word spreads!
- Always act in the interests of your company first, your colleagues next and yourself last.
By following these rules, you might find lazy people unload work on you – no issues, you now know who to trust. At some point, you will be noted as the person that did the work and the lazy person will be side-lined. Even if they claim the credit, just go with it because in the end, you will be noted as the real solution provider, especially if the task repeats and others are not capable.
By helping those around you, you create a cushion of support that you can fall back on when under pressure yourself. Not bending the truth always works, as long as you are kind. By acting in the interests of the company first, you will find that politics rarely touch you because politicians in any organisation are wasting time for games, not focusing on the needs of the company.
How do you break out of the box you have been put in?
If you suspect you have been filed in the wrong group, the answer is not to argue your case. Words cost the boss time, and time is the one thing they do not have. Instead, change the evidence. Volunteer for the job nobody else wants. Deliver it without needing a single follow-up. When something goes wrong, arrive with the problem and a proposed fix in the same breath. Do this consistently and, sooner or later, the boss notices that the box no longer fits. Boxes are redrawn slowly, but they are redrawn.
What if someone else takes the credit for your work?
Speaking as an ex-boss: bosses can be dumb, so make sure you let people know that you are involved by talking authoritatively about the content of jobs anyone else claims as theirs. The boss will know how to winkle out the truth, even a dumb boss usually knows politics well enough to find truth!
The same thinking applies to businesses as a whole. Just as people get stuck in boxes, so do processes, quietly carrying on the way they always have because nobody has time to question them. If that sounds familiar, our business analysis service is all about stepping back and asking whether there is a better way. And for a lighter take on getting stuck, read a day in the life of a coder.
