Any ideas on how to deal with a cluttered boss? His desk is constantly a mess, and he never seems to have a clue where things are or remember deadlines well. I know I can't "fix him" but does anyone else have to deal with this issue and know of some ways to work around it?
He is the president of the company and honestly very good in his leadership role, but lacks quite a bit on the administrative side. There are three of us in a pool that act like his admin assistants, but we all have other jobs of our own.
Right now we've color-coded all of our own files that we bring to his desk for signatures, approval, or review. My color is red, and at least that way I can spot my files and pull them out of the mess when I catch a few minutes with him. Another person uses blue, and the other yellow.
We also set deadline reminders in our own calendars but there are still things that he never tells us about that will slip through the cracks. We've suggested he hire a dedicated admin assistant, and we've actually been through four in less than a year. The major issue is he doesn't trust them with the work, so he comes back to us, we bring the assistant back into the loop, and eventually he decides he doens't like the new assistant so we terminate them.
The man is super-smart, but he also started this business on his own and it has now grown to more than 150 employees spread over four states. I think his system was keeping up with it all in his head, but that obviously will not work with something this large. He really is a caring boss, and I know that he trusts the three of us, but we're also tired of dealing with the fallout of his cluttered nature.
So any ideas?
