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By:

Rahul Kulkarni

30 March 2025 at 3:32:54 pm

The Boundary Collapse

When kindness becomes micromanagement It started with a simple leave request.   “Hey, can I take Friday off? Need a personal day,” Meera messaged Rohit. Rohit replied instantly:   “Of course. All good. Just stay reachable if anything urgent comes up.”   He meant it as reassurance. But the team didn’t hear reassurance. They heard a rule.   By noon, two things had shifted inside The Workshop:   Meera felt guilty for even asking. Everyone else quietly updated their mental handbook: Leave is...

The Boundary Collapse

When kindness becomes micromanagement It started with a simple leave request.   “Hey, can I take Friday off? Need a personal day,” Meera messaged Rohit. Rohit replied instantly:   “Of course. All good. Just stay reachable if anything urgent comes up.”   He meant it as reassurance. But the team didn’t hear reassurance. They heard a rule.   By noon, two things had shifted inside The Workshop:   Meera felt guilty for even asking. Everyone else quietly updated their mental handbook: Leave is allowed… but not really. This is boundary collapse… when a leader’s good intentions unintentionally blur the limits that protect autonomy and rest. When care quietly turns into control Founders rarely intend to micromanage.   What looks like control from the outside often starts as care from the inside. “Let me help before something breaks.” “Let me stay involved so we don’t lose time.” “Loop me in… I don’t want you stressed.” Supportive tone.   Good intentions.   But one invisible truth defines workplace psychology: When power says “optional,” it never feels optional.
So when a client requested a revision, Rohit gently pinged:   “If you’re free, could you take a look?” Of course she logged in.   Of course she handled it.   And by Monday, the cultural shift was complete: Leave = location change, not a boundary.   A founder’s instinct had quietly become a system. Pattern 1: The Generous Micromanager Modern micromanagement rarely looks aggressive. It looks thoughtful :   “Let me refine this so you’re not stuck.” “I’ll review it quickly.”   “Share drafts so we stay aligned.”   Leaders believe they’re being helpful. Teams hear:   “You don’t fully trust me.” “I should check with you before finishing anything.”   “My decisions aren’t final.” Gentle micromanagement shrinks ownership faster than harsh micromanagement ever did because people can’t challenge kindness. Pattern 2: Cultural conditioning around availability In many Indian workplaces, “time off” has an unspoken footnote: Be reachable. Just in case. No one says it directly.   No one pushes back openly.   The expectation survives through habit: Leave… but monitor messages. Rest… but don’t disconnect. Recover… but stay alert. Contrast this with a global team we worked with: A designer wrote,   “I’ll be off Friday, but available if needed.” Her manager replied:   “If you’re working on your off-day, we mismanaged the workload… not the boundary.”   One conversation.   Two cultural philosophies.   Two completely different emotional outcomes.   Pattern 3: The override reflex Every founder has a version of this reflex.   Whenever Rohit sensed risk, real or imagined, he stepped in: Rewriting copy.   Adjusting a design.   Rescoping a task.   Reframing an email. Always fast.   Always polite.   Always “just helping.” But each override delivered one message:   “Your autonomy is conditional.” You own decisions…   until the founder feels uneasy.   You take initiative…   until instinct replaces delegation.   No confrontation.   No drama.   Just quiet erosion of confidence.   The family-business amplification Boundary collapse becomes extreme in family-managed companies.   We worked with one firm where four family members… founder, spouse, father, cousin… all had informal authority. Everyone cared.   Everyone meant well.   But for employees, decision-making became a maze: Strategy approved by the founder.   Aesthetics by the spouse.   Finance by the father. Tone by the cousin.   They didn’t need leadership.   They needed clarity.   Good intentions without boundaries create internal anarchy. The global contrast A European product team offered a striking counterexample.   There, the founder rarely intervened mid-stream… not because of distance, but because of design:   “If you own the decision, you own the consequences.” Decision rights were clear.   Escalation paths were explicit.   Authority didn’t shift with mood or urgency. No late-night edits.   No surprise rewrites.   No “quick checks.”   No emotional overrides. As one designer put it:   “If my boss wants to intervene, he has to call a decision review. That friction protects my autonomy.” The result:   Faster execution, higher ownership and zero emotional whiplash. Boundaries weren’t personal.   They were structural .   That difference changes everything. Why boundary collapse is so costly Its damage is not dramatic.   It’s cumulative.   People stop resting → you get presence, not energy.   People stop taking initiative → decisions freeze.   People stop trusting empowerment → autonomy becomes theatre.   People start anticipating the boss → performance becomes emotional labour.   People burn out silently → not from work, but from vigilance.   Boundary collapse doesn’t create chaos.   It creates hyper-alertness, the heaviest tax on any team. The real paradox Leaders think they’re being supportive. Teams experience supervision.   Leaders assume boundaries are obvious. Teams see boundaries as fluid. Leaders think autonomy is granted. Teams act as though autonomy can be revoked at any moment. This is the Boundary Collapse → a misunderstanding born not from intent, but from the invisible weight of power. Micromanagement today rarely looks like anger.   More often,   it looks like kindness without limits. (Rahul Kulkarni is Co-founder at PPS Consulting. He patterns the human mechanics of scaling where workplace behavior quietly shapes business outcomes. Views personal.)

Fallen Empire of the Mighty Windies

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How the mighty have fallen. Once upon a time, the West Indies cricket team was a juggernaut, a fearsome beast that sent shivers down the spines of opponents. With legends like Sir Garfield Sobers and Brian Lara wielding bats like Excalibur, they carved out records that stood as monuments to their dominance.


Sobers’ 365 not out in 1958 and Lara’s 375 in 1994, followed by his audacious 400 not out in 2004, were the gold standard of Test cricket scoring—individual feats that mocked the very idea of collective failure. Fast forward to July 14, 2025, and the West Indies, chasing a modest 204 against Australia in Kingston, collapsed like a house of cards in a hurricane, bowled out for a pathetic 27 runs. Twenty-seven. Let that sink in. A team that once terrorized bowlers worldwide couldn’t muster enough runs to fill a decent PowerPoint slide. This wasn’t just a collapse; it was a public execution of pride, broadcast for all to see.

 

Mitchell Starc, in his 100th Test, turned into a one-man wrecking crew, taking 6-9, including three wickets in the first over. Scott Boland chipped in with a hat-trick, because apparently the West Indies batters were in a race to see who could get back to the pavilion fastest. Seven ducks—seven!—and only Justin Greaves, with a measly 11, bothered to show up. The second-lowest Test total in history, just one run shy of New Zealand’s 26 from 1955. 


Congratulations, West Indies, you narrowly avoided the ultimate humiliation, thanks to a misfield. Truly, a moment to frame. Let’s rewind to the glory days, shall we? The 1970s and 1980s West Indies were cricket’s equivalent of a heavyweight champion, knocking out opponents with a swagger that made lesser teams tremble. Sobers, the greatest all-rounder ever, could bat, bowl, and field with a grace that made the game look unfair. Lara, with his high backlift and murderous cover drives, toyed with bowlers like a cat with a half-dead mouse. These men didn’t just play cricket; they redefined it.


Their individual scores—365, 375, 400—were the stuff of legend, numbers that stood unchallenged for decades. Meanwhile, the 2025 West Indies team can’t cobble together 200 runs between 11 players. It’s like comparing a Shakespearean sonnet to a toddler’s crayon scribble. What happened to this once-invincible empire? The West Indies of yesteryear had fire in their bellies and steel in their spines. They had Viv Richards, who stared down fast bowlers without a helmet and still smashed them into next week. They had Malcolm Marshall, whose bowling was so lethal it should’ve come with a health warning. Now? The current squad looks like they’re auditioning for a tragic comedy.


Captain Roston Chase called it “heartbreaking,” but that’s generous. It’s more like watching a former rock star busking for loose change outside a dive bar. The team’s batting was so spineless that even the extras felt embarrassed to contribute. The emergency meeting called by Cricket West Indies, featuring luminaries like Lara, Richards, and Clive Lloyd, is a nice touch—like inviting Einstein to fix a broken calculator. But let’s not kid ourselves. This isn’t a one-off; it’s a symptom of a rot that’s been festering for decades. The West Indies rank eighth out of 12 Test teams, a far cry from their untouchable perch in the ‘80s. Players are lured away by the glitz of T20 leagues, leaving Test cricket to wither like an unloved houseplant. The pitches in Kingston might favor bowlers, but no surface excuses a batting lineup folding faster than a cheap lawn chair. Here’s the kicker: Sobers and Lara didn’t just score runs; they carried the hopes of a region, turning cricket into a cultural force. Their records were a middle finger to anyone who doubted the Caribbean’s might. Today’s team? They’re a cautionary tale, a reminder that even empires can crumble into dust.


So, what now? The West Indies’ 27-run implosion isn’t just a bad day at the office; it’s a neon sign flashing “Game Over” for a team that’s been on life support for years. The emergency meeting feels like a desperate séance to summon a spirit that’s long since fled. Cricket West Indies can talk about “rebuilding” and “strategic reviews” until the cows come home, but let’s be real: this team is a shadow of its former self, and no amount of PowerPoint presentations will fix that. The problem isn’t just technique or preparation; it’s a cultural collapse, a slow bleed of passion and pride that’s left the West Indies as relevant as a flip phone in 2025. The T20 leagues, with their fat paychecks and instant gratification, have seduced the region’s talent away from the grind of Test cricket. Why sweat it out for five days when you can slap a few sixes in three hours and buy a yacht? The current crop of players, with rare exceptions, seem to treat Test matches like an annoying chore, not a sacred battleground where legends are forged. 


(The writer is a senior journalist based in Mumbai.)

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