Getting Started with That ‘Mann in Inc’ Thing
Alright, let me tell you about this thing I tried to get going a while back. It wasn’t rocket science, just something I thought would make our lives a bit easier at the company I was with. You know how it is, you see something messy and think, “There’s gotta be a better way.”
So, I had this idea. Our weekly reporting? Total nightmare. Took hours, involved juggling like five different spreadsheets, and honestly, half the time the numbers felt kinda fuzzy by the end. My plan was simple: a unified template, maybe a shared online doc. Easy peasy, right? That’s what I thought, anyway.
The First Steps and Hurdles
First off, I mocked up a new template. Spent a weekend on it, made it look clean, easy to fill out. Felt pretty good about it. Showed it to my direct manager first thing Monday. He seemed okay with it, cautious but willing to listen. That was the easy part.
Then came the real test: pitching it upstairs. We had this senior manager, let’s just call him “The Mann” for the sake of the story. This guy was straight out of central casting for “Company Man”. Been there forever, seen it all, and pretty much believed that if it wasn’t invented before 1995, it wasn’t worth knowing.
Navigating the Corporate Maze
Meeting with “The Mann” was… an experience. He didn’t really look at the efficiency gains. Nope. His focus? Minor details.
- “Why is this font size 11.5 and not 12?”
- “The company standard clearly dictates blue, not this shade of teal.”
- “Does this comply with the reporting guidelines appendix B, subsection 3, revised in 2002?”
Seriously. It felt less like a discussion about improvement and more like an interrogation about formatting. He represented that whole “inc” mentality, where the process matters more than the outcome. He wasn’t malicious, just… rigid. Like a walking rulebook.
I spent the next few weeks in limbo. Tweak the template. Send it back. Get more feedback about obscure rules. Talk to other department folks. Some were supportive, whispering “good luck,” others just didn’t want to rock the boat, scared of attracting The Mann’s attention. It was draining. Felt like trying to push a boulder uphill, wearing flip-flops.
The Final Outcome (Sort Of)
Eventually, something got approved. But it wasn’t my slick, simple template. It was a Frankenstein version, cobbled together with so many compromises and old requirements bolted on that it barely saved any time. It was technically “new,” but felt just as clunky.
What did I learn? Well, I learned that sometimes, being the ‘mann’ with an idea inside the big ‘inc’ is less about how good your idea is, and more about how well you can navigate the bureaucracy and the personalities. You gotta understand the gatekeepers, the unspoken rules, the fear of change. It wasn’t a total failure, I guess. The report did change. But man, the effort involved for such a tiny shift… sometimes makes you wonder if it’s worth it.
