Disclaimer 1

I’m not a manager, I don’t consider myself an expert on how to do management, I don’t know what to do in the situation described in the coming paragraphs. BUT: It was pointed out to me that LinkedIn is a social network for half-baked business hot takes and thus I posted it there. The post here on the blog is because I don’t want LinkedIn to be a unique host for my writing … even the bad one.

Disclaimer 2

I have discussed that Pokemon episode with a manager of mine between 2017 and 2026. If that’s you: This post is not about you. This post is about a situation that occurred before we met.

The hot take

The scene “Metapod vs Metapod” from Pokemon Episode 4: Challenge of the Samurai is an commentary on managers clenching their buttholes or ordering to do so, when it’s actually futile.

(I borrowed the phrasing from pokeviews.wordpress.com due to lack of eloquence on my side).

The scene

In the 4th episode of the 1997 anime series Pokemon, we have this clip Metapod vs metapod.

The situation is as such: Ash is in a fight against another trainer, he has only one pokemon left to fight for him: Metapod. And his opponent also choses a Metapod to fight for him.

One might argue that Ash shouldn’t have ended up in that situation: Misty scolds him for not having let his pokemon rest - even though she witnessed the events leading up to the fight, there was no opportunity to let them rest. But I’d argue we can consider this “world building”, the viewer learns that resting is a thing.

In any case, Metapods have no offensive abilities. In this fight neither party can do anything other than waiting for the other party to do something.

Both trainers command their pokemon to use “harden” (increase their defensive stats) repeatedly, nothing happens and “Finally, the hours of standing around with tightly clenched buttholes get the better of them, and Ash and Samurai collapse from exhaustion”. The two … focussed, concentrated, tensed, gave everything … and actually didn’t do anything.

The adult work-life view

Ash manages a team member who’s untrained, unprepared, unfit for the task at hand. No increasing of stress or emphasis of the severity of the situation or emotional support will change that. No amount of time will enable Metapod to complete the task.

Ash doesn’t understand that and comically stresses out and burns more and more effort for less than diminishing returns.

I don’t know what Ash should do instead of concentrating, clenching, and tensing up, possibly there’s nothing he could do. In universe he could let Metapod just stay in battle (not forfeit) until his other pokemon are rested, but that’s equivalent to doing nothing. But it would’ve been less frustrating to watch Ash as an adult had he admitted that clenching won’t acomplish anything.

Advice

How does one recognize that one follows Ash’s example? Don’t know.

How does one identify that one is overcorrecting? Don’t know.

But that’s why I’m not training managers and I still want managers to recognizie when they’re being like Ash.

Anecdotes

I once found myself in the situation that my manager wanted me to behave like Ash. I should put all my time and all my energy and all my effort into this one project. My task was to manage that project. The project was waiting for some input. We had already done everything once before, we didn’t need to prepare anything that we would do once we had the input. We were just waiting. Fine, I didn’t give anybody the task to put more effort into waiting, I didn’t give anybody any task, but I was supposed to concentrate, clench, and tense up like Ash, until the point where I would faint. I was strictly told that must not work on any other project in parallel. And it was explained to me over and over and over again how super duper important that project was for me, the fate of humanity, my career, and how important it was in general.

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