Latest / The Difficult Boss Podcast with Fexingo: Managing Up, Toxic Managers, and Workplace Survival / How Managers Hide Behind Process
Transcript
- Lucas: I want to talk about something that feels like it’s becoming the default operating system for modern management, and I’m calling it process laundering. It’s when a manager deliberately wraps a simple decision or a clear directive in layers of unnecessary workflow, approval chains, or compliance checks so that if things go wrong, they can point to the process rather than their own judgment. Luna: That sounds like a fancy way of saying they’re hiding behind the rules. Is it always intentional though? Or do managers just get caught up in the complexity themselves? Lucas: Sometimes it’s accidental incompetence, but what I’m seeing more often now, especially in tech-adjacent sectors, is deliberate obfuscation. Let’s look at a specific case from a mid-sized fintech company in Austin that recently came across my desk. They had a product launch timeline that kept slipping, not because the engineering was hard, but because every minor change required a three-person sign-off that no one actually read. Luna: So the bottleneck wasn’t technical, it was political. They were using the approval chain as a shield against blame. Lucas: Exactly. The project lead knew that if the launch missed its date, he could say, well, we followed the risk assessment protocol. But in reality, the protocol was just a delay tactic. He didn’t want to make the call on whether to cut features or miss the deadline. He wanted the process to make the call for him. And the people doing the work, the individual contributors, were left spinning their wheels waiting for signatures that would never come because the manager was afraid of the optics of being the decider. Luna: It’s exhausting. You end up working on projects that are designed to fail, not because the strategy is bad, but because the execution is paralyzed by fear. Lucas: Right. And here’s the thing: it’s not just about being slow. It’s about erasing your own agency. When you launder your decisions through a committee or a rigid workflow, you remove yourself from the equation. If the project succeeds, you can claim you managed the process well. If it fails, you can claim you followed procedure. It’s the ultimate corporate safe play. But it destroys trust and momentum. Luna: Do you think younger workers are spotting this more now? Or are they just accepting it as part of the job? Lucas: They’re spotting it, but they’re also trapped by it. I’ve talked to several engineers who told me they feel like they’re playing a video game where the controls are unresponsive. They know the manager is washing their hands of the outcome, but they don’t have the power to bypass the process. So they just keep pushing tickets forward, hoping someone else will catch the ball before it drops. Luna: That’s a terrible place to be. You’re responsible for the output but you don’t control the input. It’s basically a lose-lose situation. Lucas: It is. And the worst part is that companies often incentivize this behavior. We see it in performance reviews where managers are rewarded for 'risk mitigation' rather than 'speed to market.' If you push back on a vague approval process, you’re labeled as difficult. If you go along with it, you’re labeled as compliant. So everyone chooses compliance, even when they know it’s killing the business. Luna: So how do you fight back without getting fired? Because most people aren’t in a position to just walk into the CEO’s office and say, hey, my boss is lazy. Lucas: You have to document the ambiguity. I advise listeners to start treating every unclear directive as a contract. Send an email after every meeting where the goal was vague. Summarize what was discussed, outline the next steps, and explicitly ask for confirmation or correction. Say something like, based on our discussion, I’m proceeding with option A because option B requires additional sign-offs we don’t have time for. Please confirm by end of day. Luna: That puts the ball back in their court. If they don’t reply, you have proof you asked for clarity. If they reply vaguely, you have proof they couldn’t give you any. Lucas: Precisely. You’re forcing them to either make a decision or admit they won’t. Most managers hate that because it exposes their lack of direction. But it also protects you. If the project fails later, you can show that you asked for guidance and received none. That’s a very different story than saying, I just did what I was told. Luna: It shifts the narrative from incompetence to obstruction. Which is a much harder charge for upper management to ignore. Lucas: And it creates a paper trail. I’ve seen this work in legal and finance sectors where documentation is everything. If a manager tries to scapegoat you, you pull out the thread of emails showing you tried to move forward and were blocked by their own process. It’s boring, it’s dry, but it’s powerful. Luna: Does this happen more in remote teams? Because it’s easier to hide behind Slack threads and async updates. Lucas: It definitely happens more remotely. In an office, you can walk over to someone’s desk and ask, hey, what do you actually want me to do here? In a remote setting, that question gets buried in chat history for weeks. Managers use asynchronous communication to delay responses until the problem goes away. By the time they reply, the context has changed, and they can say, oh, that’s no longer relevant. Luna: So digital silence becomes a weapon. You’re left waiting for a notification that never comes, while the deadline looms. Lucas: Exactly. And the employee starts second-guessing themselves. They wonder if they should have guessed the answer. Should I have sent it anyway? Should I have waited? That mental load is huge. It drains energy that should be going into the actual work. Luna: I guess the key is to stop guessing and start forcing the choice. Even if the choice is a bad one, at least it’s a named one. Lucas: Yes. A bad decision made by a manager is better than no decision made by a process. Because when a manager makes a bad decision, they own it. And eventually, that pattern shows up in their review. But when they hide behind process, they own nothing, and the team pays the price repeatedly. Luna: It’s interesting how much of this is just fear disguised as policy. Managers are scared of looking wrong, so they create systems to ensure they never look right or wrong. Lucas: That’s the core of it. It’s risk aversion dressed up as diligence. And the tragedy is that it stifles innovation. You can’t innovate if every step requires three approvals. You can’t pivot quickly if you’re stuck in a workflow designed for stability, not speed. Luna: So for listeners dealing with this, what’s the first step? Just start documenting, or try to have a direct conversation with the manager? Lucas: Start with the documentation, but pair it with a direct conversation. Say, I want to move faster on this project. Can we simplify the approval steps? Frame it as helping the team succeed, not attacking their style. Most managers will agree in principle, even if they struggle to follow through. But once you’ve put that request in writing, you’ve set a benchmark. Luna: If they refuse, then you escalate the documentation. You’re not complaining, you’re just reporting the gap between intent and execution. Lucas: Right. And if they still refuse, you have a very clear signal that this isn’t about process efficiency. It’s about control. And that’s a red flag you shouldn’t ignore. It tells you that this environment values safety over progress, which might not be the right place for your career long-term. Luna: That’s a tough realization. But knowing that it’s a cultural issue, not a personal failure, helps you plan your exit strategy instead of burning out trying to fix it. Lucas: Exactly. You stop trying to swim upstream and start looking for a river that flows in the direction you want to go. And that’s okay. Not every company is built for speed. Some are built for stability. Know which one you’re in. Luna: Before we wrap up, I want to touch on the donation segment because I think many of you are finding these strategies really practical for your current roles. Lucas: If today was actually useful to you, the way these stay ad-free is listener support — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo — that's F. E. X. I. N. G. O. Luna: It really helps keep the analysis sharp and independent. Thanks for supporting us. Lucas: Back to the topic. One last thought on process laundering. Sometimes the solution isn’t to fight the process, but to bypass it entirely by building relationships with other departments. Luna: You mean informal networks? Getting the green light from the stakeholder directly, even if it skips the official chain? Lucas: Yes. But you have to be careful. If you bypass the official chain, you risk stepping on toes. But if you build genuine alliances, you can often get verbal confirmation that moves the needle. It’s less formal, but it’s often more effective than fighting a broken system. Luna: It’s about human connection over rigid structure. Reminding people that there are humans on the other side of the ticket. Lucas: Always. At the end of the day, processes are made by people. And if you remember that, you can sometimes persuade them to bend the rules just enough to let work get done. Luna: Or at least to admit they don’t have a rule for it. Which is usually the moment the real decision begins. Lucas: That’s the spot. Once the ambiguity is gone, the work can actually start. And that’s worth fighting for.