Kia Ora! It’s your friendly neighborhood Deputy to the Managing Editor Matty Flatt again, covering for Fitzie one more time this week.
The news broke a couple of days ago that Fabio Paratici was coming
back on board at Tottenham Hotspur, where he will share the Sporting Director title with Johan Lange.
It’s not a development I’m especially happy with (though if I squint, their strengths and weakness do complement each other well), though that’s more to do with how I feel Johan Lange has performed in the role alongside Paratici’s affinity for… well, crime. What’s odd though is a setup where you have two people effectively performing the same role, but with slightly different duties.
In most standard organizational structures, you would have one reporting into the other, with the senior staff member delegating certain duties to their employee, but that’s not what’s happened here, with the two apparently sharing seniority. Like I said, it’s a bit strange, and it feels like nowadays you see more and more unusual arrangements such as this in the professional landscape.
Dotted reporting lines, shared responsibilities, no direct line manager – all occasional features of the modern workplace. It’s something I’ve experienced earlier in my career as well. I was appointed to a role within an organization in which I effectively had two distinct responsibilities: one in which I reported to a certain manager (let’s call them Jeanette) and another part that was managed by Jeanette’s superior (let’s call them Jimmy). This means I had two managers, but for half of my role I sat at the same level in the org chart as Jeanette.
It’s a setup I think can work, if the personalities are the right fit and egos don’t get in the way. Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case, and Jeanette certainly wasn’t happy about the way things were. This culminated in me leaving the job, after she lied to Jimmy about saying I could take leave for an overseas trip which I proceeded to book. Incidentally, this was also the point in my career at which I learned to always get things in writing. Not a fun way to learn that lesson, so hopefully my experience helps somebody in the commentariat early in their career…
What about you, have you experienced any odd organizational structures or role breakdowns? Do you think it can work between Paratici and Lange?
Matty Flatt’s track of the day: Madder, by Groove Armada
And now for your links:
Spurs Twitter: Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall have been nominated for an award!
In something of a rebut to yesterday’s Athletic piece, the Standard considers the positives of Paratici’s return
Sean Walsh, courtesy of goal.com, takes a look at some of the #narratives heading into the next round of the Premier League
The BBC on the mooted introduction of salary limits, and football clubs’ responses
