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We own a small business with 15 employees one of us manages most of the employees but both of us are viewed as bosses and both of us provide feedback. We are concerned that this could cause some issues with effective management sometimes and would love some help and advice on this.

pucciot's picture
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Submitted by pucciot on Wednesday January 18th, 2017 12:13 pm

I don't have experience in this situation... so I can only give you my first impression.

Take that for what it is worth.

I know that I would appreciate to only have one (1) Boss.

Having two will eventually make for poor communication, playing off each other, and possibly creating favorites. -- Either favorite employees or employees having favorite bosses.

Organizational communication goes both ways.  You are thinking about the downward communication.....

What about the upward communication ?  Where should the employee communicate upward ?

If you don't like Mom - then go to Dad.  If you don't like Dad - then go to Mom.

I would suggest that you designate an "official supervisor" to each direct.  The only one person that can give the annual appraisal.  The only one person that can give supervisor feedback.  The only one person to go to as the boss.

The other Boss, will always be approached like a "Peer" of the Official Boss.  So they will still have lots of influence.  And they will still want to have a positive relationship.

I suggest that you determine this by Majority Job type.  Creating "Departments" of a sort.

--- Employees who do mostly work on Billing - report to the one (1) Boss who has the move experience with Billing.

This doesn't mean that one of the bosses can't influence other parts of the business ---  That is between you as partners.

-- It just makes it clear and easy for the employee to know --- "OK, but who is the boss of this task, of me and what I am doing today?"

A man cannot serve two masters, he will resent one of them.

Good Luck

TJPuccio

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elysium's picture
Submitted by Elysium on Thursday January 19th, 2017 4:03 am

Thanks this is very insightful

mike_bruns_99's picture
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Submitted by mike_bruns_99 on Friday January 20th, 2017 2:18 am

My wife and I also own a 12-person engineering company. The advice from TJ is spot-on. Here are a few other thoughts:

1)  No matter how small the company, formal reporting relationships are important. A person can't have 2 bosses. One of you need to be the manager, the other needs to be skip-manager.

2)  Never, and I mean NEVER, second-guess your spouse in public. Directs will play mom vs dad. That just can't happen.

3)  Make the communication process perfectly clear. Sometimes directs don't understand that my wife and I try our best to leave "work at work". Sometimes they "assume" that anything they tell me is automatically shared with my wife, and visa-versa.

A perfect example from this week, a mistake I made.  On Monday, a direct who reports to my wife asked me if they could take a PTO day on Friday for a dentist appointment. I said fine. BIG MISTAKE BY ME. 

Of course, I didn’t tell her about it. And of course, my wife was upset at both of us. At me for usurping her authority. And at the direct, because my wife had to scramble to cover his absence.

I should have directed him to check with my wife. It’s easy as the “President” and a high-D to make a decision. We have all the role-power we need. Most times, the best approach is not to use it.