Divided Management Creates Conflicting Priorities

Almost all jobs involve multiple priorities. If you have one boss who helps you balance these priorities, it becomes more and more clear how to do so.  When workers see how their boss handles multiple priorities and get feedback on their own handling of them, they get a feel for the relative importance of each.  

However, when different aspects of business are managed or supervised by different people, there will inevitably be a conflict of priorities.  If one person supervises production, another supervises quality, and another supervises safety, there is not only a conflict of three priorities, but of three people.  Workers now must juggle multiple priorities as well as multiple personalities and relationships.  It is difficult to see the unity of priorities when the organization divides them into different departments and personnel.  The big picture tends to be a divided screen with three pictures.  The worker can only watch one at a time.

It is critically important for organizations to balance and unify, not divide priorities.  Most organizations want safe, quality production, not three conflicting aspects of work.  It is fine to have experts in each field who advise and serve as resources.  It is not good to try to make such experts partial supervisors on the shop floor.  One supervisor can better manage the whole process and unify the aspects of the process where workers view their role as doing the work, rather than refereeing their multiple bosses.

-Terry L. Mathis

Terry L. Mathis is the founder and CEO of ProAct Safety, an international safety and performance excellence firm. He is known for his dynamic presentations in the fields of behavioral and cultural safety, leadership, and operational performance, and is a regular speaker at ASSE, NSC, and numerous company and industry conferences. EHS Today listed Terry as a Safety Guru in ‘The 50 People Who Most Influenced EHS’ in 2010, 2011 and 2012-2013. He has been a frequent contributor to industry magazines for over 15 years and is the coauthor of STEPS to Safety Culture Excellence, 2013, WILEY.