Disposing of your boss

Sometimes your boss ceases to be useful. He/she stops gives you the things you want, whatever they may be. If that happens, your boss is broken you and need to find a replacement.

There are three main ways to dispose of your boss:

i)                    change jobs, by obtaining an inside track on a selection process to a more desirable role, (rather similarly to getting promoted above).

ii)                  change boss by persuading an alternative candidate to acquire you to their team, assuming your corporate culture permits it. A generally accepted way of going about this is to take a secondment/placement which you somehow fail to return from.

iii)                get the boss removed.

Option iii) is a high-risk strategy. If you really want to try it, here is how to go about it, but please read the health warning on the packet.

Step 1: find out what your boss’s relationship to his/her Superior is.

Step 2: If he/she is a Loyalist, forget it now. If he/she is an Extension, you have to become a more competent Extension than your boss, or find a candidate for that position. If he/she is in another role, you stand a greater chance because they will be considered dispensable.

Step 3: establish your own relationship with your boss’s Superior. This is high-risk. You will need to become a Loyalist. If your own boss has any wits about them, they will undoubtedly block this, quite possibly in a way that is detrimental to you.

Step 4: divide your boss’s responsibilities into three parts.

Part 1: anything which overlaps with, or is delegated to you. Leave this well alone. You do not under any circumstances want to cast any doubt in the general competence of your boss’s team in these areas, in case that doubt leaks over you. Under normal circumstances you will of course be promoting the success of this area in any case.

Part 2: anything which is well within your boss’s core competency, or about which you know little, or which is handled by very competent people

Part 3: the rest, presumably your boss’s weakest areas.

Step 5: slowly arrange for doubt to be cast over your boss’s competency in this area. If you have succeeded with step 3, you may be able to do this directly. If not, you may have to find a disaffected Specialist or Extension in the relevant area whose discontent you can cultivate. Bring to the boil and allow to simmer slowly over a hot executive.

And hey presto, your boss is incompetent, and provided you have handled step 4 correctly, you should be in pole position for the job yourself. Just to repeat: don’t try this at home without a parent or guardian present. Also, remember that it is better to work for an incompetent boss than an incompetent interfering boss.

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