#9c2a: How managers set up their teams for failure.

The conflicting priorities of manager and her team present themselves in several ways. A manager may optimise her time by assembling her team to present status updates — at the cost of the team's time. Or she may create a culture where people are expected to be highly responsive — and hence highly distractible — in a misguided effort to ensure no member of her team ever wastes time waiting for assistance. This may also arise from a self-preserving instinct to have immediate answers to her questions, which may in turn be status update requests from her superiors.

In either case, a well-intentioned manager can easily and inadvertently lead her team to failure.

Related: 9c2