Sometimes a manager, with every good intention, will skip around the supervisor who reports to them and provide direction to a team member. The supervisor is cut out of the equation. It's fast. It sometimes works. It always has side-effects. The main side-effect is that the next time that same team member has an issue or a problem, they will go around their supervisor and directly to the manager. Before you know it, the manager is supervising the employee and the supervisor is cut out. That's not what you want. That's not what the supervisor wants. And, that's not good for your team. I know that in today's world there are fewer levels of leadership. It makes sense that people should be able to talk, at any time, to anyone in the organization. Keep your doors open -- just remember, you probably don't want a parade of people two levels down marching thru. -- doug smith