There is a range of strong emotions that can flow through your mind and senses when you are squeezed in the middle of the matrix.

What do I mean by "squeezed in the middle of the matrix"?

Let's look at Jake's case.

Jake works in a large organization specialized in the design and construction of gas fired power plants. Due to the scale of the company, its global footprint and its project based (EPC) delivery model, the senior management had opted for a matrix organization set-up.

The first dimension of the matrix is the EPC organization, which essentially consists of temporary project organizations.

 The second dimension of the matrix consists of the functional departments. Centrally set-up, they develop processes, best practices, and provide resources to the project organizations.

In theory, the split of roles and responsibility is clear, and the overall organization benefit from economies of scale. The temporary project organizations use a common delivery model enabled by the functional departments.

In this set-up, Jake is the Head of Scheduling, reporting to the Vice President for Project Management Office (PMO).  Jake leads a department of 20 team members. Most of them are assigned to projects, while a couple of specialists assist Jake in developing and maintaining the department processes, best practices and competence framework.

Jake has 10 years of PMO experience under his belt. He joined the organization through the graduate programme and quickly developed a passion for PMO matters. After 8 years with different PMO roles held in projects, Jake accepted to take the lead of the Scheduling department.

The Scheduling department consisted of 6 persons at its inception. The department grew organically, driven by the demand from projects. This was a great opportunity for Jake who was known as a "people" person and also showed leadership potential.

Without any "people manager" experience, Jake was on a steep learning curve during the first couple of years. The department was growing as the project portfolio expended. Well supported by his organisation, Jake enjoyed learning about leadership, people management processes and how to develop his team members. The bulk of the workload was about developing and formalizing PMO processes he was responsible for, hiring new people, onboarding them and making sure his team members were kept up to date from a competency perspective.

The first time Jake got exposed to strategic work is when his newly hired line manager issued a PMO strategy paper. Jake was not aware of the document until the day it got released. It came as a surprise to him, and to the rest of the organization as well.

With a tad of mistrust, Jake studied the document thoroughly - as required by his new line manager. The document was obviously well structured and did touch many typical PMO concepts the organization needed to further develop and improve.

However, it had been obviously developed without Jake's key stakeholder, the EPC organization. Some of the strategic areas described in the strategy document did not reflect how the EPC projects worked with PMO matters. An example particularly got Jake's attention. From his experience in working in projects in his organization, the accountability and responsibility for project scheduling was with the project managers, not with the PMO organization as described in the document. Similarly, PMO IT tools and platforms used in projects have always been identified and rolled-out together with the EPC organization. But now, it seems that PMO would take the shot.

"Interesting..." thought Jake.

At the next PMO management team meeting, Jake and his peers were asked if they had any comments.

"Maybe a little bit too late" reflected Jake, with a pinch of irony.

All were asked to engage with their stakeholders in the EPC organization to define a roll-out and implementation plan for the new PMO strategy in their respective area.

Jake immediately felt a wave of stress and anxiety hitting him. This was the first time during his middle manager career. Jake had been loaded and stressed with work many times before, especially when working in projects. But back then, he knew what had to be done. He had control over the workload. The stress was linked to work capacity, which was something that Jake could easily conceptualize and rationalize.

In this new situation, this was a totally unchartered territory for him.

And his worry just grew bigger as his EPC organization stakeholders started to bombard him with questions and expressed unequivocally their surprise and discontentment. It was very clear now that the EPC organization was not aware of the new PMO direction, and that there had been no alignment at Jake's line manager level. This was confirmed during a short talk with one of the EPC directors at the coffee machine.

Jake felt he was an inextricable situation.

He could not say "no" to his line manager. And at the same time, he could not force his internal customer, the EPC organization, to work with a strategy they did not want to roll-out nor implement. Rightfully or not…

This is what I mean "to be squeezed in the matrix".

This typical middle management situation has been conceptualized back in 1979 by Robert Kasarek, in his job-demand-control (JDC) model.

In Jake's case, he just shifted from the "Active Jobs" zone to the "High strain jobs" zone.

In the long term, staying in this situation can be detrimental to Jake's mental health and wellbeing.

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The Middle Management Anonymous 2 cents

As unfair the situation seems to be (at least from Jake's perspective), we propose a few elements of reflection to move the needle forward.

 What not to do:

• Be hung up on the past - There is absolutely no point in replaying the script of what happened over and over again. This will not help on resolving the situation as of now.

• Do nothing - At that point, it is very unlikely that an external party will show up out of nowhere and magically resolve the issue. Action is needed to get out of the status quo.

• Be resentful - Many of us have been there a few times. Frustration will kick in, understandably. But that will not fix the issue. Also, there is nothing personal in this situation. It is perfectly fine to acknowledge this feeling, but then, important to move on.  

At this stage, Jake should focus on what is under his control and what can be acted upon.

What to do:

• Investigate - Contrary to be hung in the past, thinking about the chain of action and reflecting on the "why-why-why" will help at identifying the causal factors, and from that point on, establishing an action plan.

• Learn - To this point, it seems that Jake never really invested time into the strategic part of his work. What an excellent opportunity to learn about strategy work. Books, training, TED talks, articles... There is an illimited source of information related to strategy and strategic work. Getting up to speed with the main concepts of strategy work could be a way to have more informed discussion with his line manager, and possibly contribute to the PMO strategy paper.

• Develop team trust - Jake's line manager, being new in the organization, might have felt that she needed to demonstrate her knowledge and "marked his territory". Not a great start with her team... Jake could use this unfortunate situation to suggest his new boss to work on the PMO Management Team trust and communication. By doing so, he doesn't only demonstrate that he cares about his colleagues and the team dynamic, but he could also open the door for more collaboration, and therefore influence, on crafting a better PMO strategy document.

• Practice leadership without authority - Instead of being just a messenger between his line manager and the project deliver organization (his internal customer), Jake could play a role of connector and conflict resolver. Initiating a piece of work to clarify roles and responsibilities could not only support the PMO strategy implementation, but also demonstrate his value-add. Translating strategy to actionable steps further "below" in the organization is one of the key role of middle managers.

These are just a few examples of strategies, tactics and tools that Jake could use to move out from the "High strain jobs" zone.

Hey middle managers! What is your take?

• Have you experienced yourself this kind of situation?

• What strategies, tactics or tools would you use to ?

Leave us your comments, feedbacks and thoughts!

We would love to hear your story and get your perspectives.

This is how The Middle Management Anonymous community will learn, grow and become more resilient in this kind of situations.