Black(berry) Hole – The Blackberry, with all of its pluses and minuses has created a black hole in an important part of the workplace. With this “improvement” in communication, you can be on call anywhere, anytime. You can’t even go on vacation without taking it with you. So, there is never a time to refresh and regroup. But there is an even worse effect than being on call 100% of the time. We have nearly eliminated the short-term delegation aspect of management. I’m old enough to remember that when a manager was gone for an extended period of time he would send out a memo that said, “I will be out of the office from March 13 – March 24. In my absence, Joe Jones will have authority for all matters except salary and capital issues.” This was real delegation. If something came up, Joe had to make the decision. There were enough people around so Joe couldn’t bankrupt the company, and in most cases, nothing that important happened anyway. But for those two weeks, Joe had to approve some things, meet with different people, etc. In many cases, the Blackberry has taken this away. And when you move on to your next big thing, you’ll find there is black hole where somebody with a little experience could have been. So if you are one of those “Blackheads,” try turning it off when you are away and devising an emergency response system if it turns out that Joe really can’t handle things. But I bet Joe won’t need to (or want to) call you.