We had our conversations yesterday about the new structure and our new supervisors. At the end of the my difficult conversation the other day the interim director told me that I was getting a new supervisor and this person was very excited to work with me. The difficult conversation was, well difficult. I was obviously upset by the end. I had very important things to say, and by the end I was able to say some of them. I am really proud of telling her at the end that the project I had issues with was presented to us under a power and control model primarily, and that if I had known what the purpose was I would have been ahead of the project and made her look and the supervisors look awesome. We have worked on committees before on communication issues, and power and control from a level of the organization. When she talked about how many jobs everyone was doing (after telling me she could solve my workload issues) I told her that we are all dealing with this and we have a choice to work together rather than in conflict. Much of the reason I went to her is our previous work on committees of communication and personalized learning rather than her position as interim director.
So I am happy with my new supervisor. He is a nice guy and he apparently wants to work with me, he has been in our grouping for awhile so I do know him. I think I can work with him the way I work best, without being overly concerned about hierarchy. The structure is also pretty good. It is more flattened that vertical and that suits me much better. They have actually created a structure that could lead to people being promoted from within! There has been a gap between managing one site and managing 10 where there were no opportunities to manage 4-5 as a mid-step, so we promote underqualified or from outside. They also put us in geographic regions which supports some of the work we have been doing for awhile.