The most amazing thing happened this week. My boss was fired. It wasn’t a shot from the blue, because he’d done some stupid things. He wasn’t exactly a favorite of his boss. If you’ve read many of these little musings you might have gathered that he wasn’t very good at his job. He wasn’t, but he had some good qualities. He was a serious micromanager, and like many from that work-weasel phylum, he had to work his butt off to keep up. I respected him for the hours he put in. When he put his mind to it he was very prepared and he was knowledgeable about key subjects. I feel badly for him because he was a decent person when you got him out of the “boss” persona. I feel great for me because he was a terrible boss and it was only a matter of time before his boss persona truly screwed up my career.
There is a group of a half-dozen managers who really guide the happenings in the plant: the big boss, obviously; the HR manager; the operations manager; the maintenance manager; the material resources manager (yeah, that’s a weird one) and finally, the controller. My peers are at a level below this group. One day the big boss got a wild hair and assembled the group to discuss each of the managers at the level below (including me). The stated purpose was to decide which of the lower managers had the potential to move up and what kind of extracurricular training they might need. Basically they were looking at a succession plan, though they never would have called it that because they don’t want anyone to know their roles. Can’t have any of the servants getting all uppity, now, can we?
Somehow someone caught the gist of the meeting and that someone told me. Ever curious, I asked one of the big managers to tell me about it. He told me he couldn’t. I couldn’t let that hanging curveball go by, and after some questioning about his testosterone levels and his estrogen supplements I bullied the poor bastard into telling all.
As it turns out, most of the managers had already picked one of their lieutenants to be his successor, and waxed poetic about the capabilities of this person. Not my boss. Not only would he not anoint the next man, but he ran me and my peers so far into the ground that Jules Verne wrote a novel about it. I was told that I got special treatment. I “couldn’t control my direct reports”. I “had no idea how to direct work”. I even “had little or no technical skills”, and, my personal favorite, my people skills are “barely fit for kindergarten”. Apparently the other managers were so appalled they got him to recant, and obviously one was so appalled he had to tell me. Even though he recanted, his vehemence stuck with some of the others. And, more crushing, he had examples to back each one of his “charges”. And they were all true…
So where do we go? Yes, you can see why I’m glad he’s gone. But let’s be honest. We are paid to sit in judgment of the people who work for us. We’ll use an example or anecdote to support our judgments. The anecdote could be true, and it can be totally wrong. Take this: I could say that the Cleveland Browns are one heckuva football team this year, because they beat the defending Super Bowl champions on the road. They really did. They beat the Saints in N’Orleans. But that doesn't make them a good team; they’ve only won two other games. Sorry, Cleveland, but they stink.
Let’s take one of the charges against me, because they are all basically the same. I couldn’t control the guys who report to me. Well, one day I was having a staff meeting, and we were discussing a new initiative. One of the supervisors, who happens to be the most curmudgeonly of an often surly bunch, dug in his heels and said hell no I aint gonna do it. It’s times like these when I’ll let a rant start and run its course. Many of the other guys will sympathize, and I’ll get to hear the major points against what I want to do. I can either rebut them if they’re wrong, or I can figure out what to change if the initiative is screwed up. This particular time it did not work out well, because the rest of the guys jumped on the bandwagon and before long there wasn’t a one of them that was going to play ball.
Two things to bear in mind: 1) This was only one of about 20 new initiatives we had started over the preceding 8 weeks, and most of them were doing fine. 2) It was kind of screwed up and I knew it was like teaching the Burger King to make Big Macs.
I caved. At the time I decided discretion was the better part of valor and I took it off the table. Little did I know that the boss had snuck in the room behind me. I think he took good notes.
But you see how situations like this can flavor how we see the folks who work for us. It must have seemed like I was the admiral of the Yamato at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. What to do?
I have found that I need to challenge my own thinking when I’m reviewing the performance of the folks who report to me. Situations can subtly color your feelings toward your employees and they can be wrong. Recently I talked to a mechanic who told me his supervisor (who reports to me) instructed him to use the wrong metallurgy on a machine part, and the machine failed soon after causing downtime in the plant. The first thing that went though my head: “That supervisor is an idiot. Why would he do that?” I was mad at him for days afterward and I gave him hell. But you know, he is a dam good supervisor. His employees work safely. The shop is clean. His area usually runs quite well. If he screws up one decision every once in a while I can actually live with it. It won’t kill me.
The reverse of this is true, too. You might have a poor performer who looks good because he washes your car or something.
Do a mental force field analysis on the folks who work for you. Monthly, quarterly, whenever. Just do it. Don’t let the anecdotes do your managing for you.
P.S. The muse is dead. Long live the muse.
There is a group of a half-dozen managers who really guide the happenings in the plant: the big boss, obviously; the HR manager; the operations manager; the maintenance manager; the material resources manager (yeah, that’s a weird one) and finally, the controller. My peers are at a level below this group. One day the big boss got a wild hair and assembled the group to discuss each of the managers at the level below (including me). The stated purpose was to decide which of the lower managers had the potential to move up and what kind of extracurricular training they might need. Basically they were looking at a succession plan, though they never would have called it that because they don’t want anyone to know their roles. Can’t have any of the servants getting all uppity, now, can we?
Somehow someone caught the gist of the meeting and that someone told me. Ever curious, I asked one of the big managers to tell me about it. He told me he couldn’t. I couldn’t let that hanging curveball go by, and after some questioning about his testosterone levels and his estrogen supplements I bullied the poor bastard into telling all.
As it turns out, most of the managers had already picked one of their lieutenants to be his successor, and waxed poetic about the capabilities of this person. Not my boss. Not only would he not anoint the next man, but he ran me and my peers so far into the ground that Jules Verne wrote a novel about it. I was told that I got special treatment. I “couldn’t control my direct reports”. I “had no idea how to direct work”. I even “had little or no technical skills”, and, my personal favorite, my people skills are “barely fit for kindergarten”. Apparently the other managers were so appalled they got him to recant, and obviously one was so appalled he had to tell me. Even though he recanted, his vehemence stuck with some of the others. And, more crushing, he had examples to back each one of his “charges”. And they were all true…
So where do we go? Yes, you can see why I’m glad he’s gone. But let’s be honest. We are paid to sit in judgment of the people who work for us. We’ll use an example or anecdote to support our judgments. The anecdote could be true, and it can be totally wrong. Take this: I could say that the Cleveland Browns are one heckuva football team this year, because they beat the defending Super Bowl champions on the road. They really did. They beat the Saints in N’Orleans. But that doesn't make them a good team; they’ve only won two other games. Sorry, Cleveland, but they stink.
Let’s take one of the charges against me, because they are all basically the same. I couldn’t control the guys who report to me. Well, one day I was having a staff meeting, and we were discussing a new initiative. One of the supervisors, who happens to be the most curmudgeonly of an often surly bunch, dug in his heels and said hell no I aint gonna do it. It’s times like these when I’ll let a rant start and run its course. Many of the other guys will sympathize, and I’ll get to hear the major points against what I want to do. I can either rebut them if they’re wrong, or I can figure out what to change if the initiative is screwed up. This particular time it did not work out well, because the rest of the guys jumped on the bandwagon and before long there wasn’t a one of them that was going to play ball.
Two things to bear in mind: 1) This was only one of about 20 new initiatives we had started over the preceding 8 weeks, and most of them were doing fine. 2) It was kind of screwed up and I knew it was like teaching the Burger King to make Big Macs.
I caved. At the time I decided discretion was the better part of valor and I took it off the table. Little did I know that the boss had snuck in the room behind me. I think he took good notes.
But you see how situations like this can flavor how we see the folks who work for us. It must have seemed like I was the admiral of the Yamato at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. What to do?
I have found that I need to challenge my own thinking when I’m reviewing the performance of the folks who report to me. Situations can subtly color your feelings toward your employees and they can be wrong. Recently I talked to a mechanic who told me his supervisor (who reports to me) instructed him to use the wrong metallurgy on a machine part, and the machine failed soon after causing downtime in the plant. The first thing that went though my head: “That supervisor is an idiot. Why would he do that?” I was mad at him for days afterward and I gave him hell. But you know, he is a dam good supervisor. His employees work safely. The shop is clean. His area usually runs quite well. If he screws up one decision every once in a while I can actually live with it. It won’t kill me.
The reverse of this is true, too. You might have a poor performer who looks good because he washes your car or something.
Do a mental force field analysis on the folks who work for you. Monthly, quarterly, whenever. Just do it. Don’t let the anecdotes do your managing for you.
P.S. The muse is dead. Long live the muse.
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