My first real job out of college was being a Quality Manager of a small manufacturing plant in North Carolina. Back then, I was big into keeping journals of my thoughts and experiences. I found one of my journals this weekend and was entertained with the experiences I had as a wet behind the ear engineer who planned to fix the world's problems.
Here is a passage from a time when an employee (of mine) quit. This had never happened to me before and I struggled with my thoughts. Her name is fictitious.
Margaret quit today. I hate to see her leave. She is a fine lady and a very good worker. In retrospect, I dwelled on her negative performance far more than her accomplishments. First of all, she was very concerned with the well being of the company and the quality of processes and products. Her involvement in the "What If" program was rivaled by few. She provided daily suggestions for improvement. Her strength unfortunately was her weakness. She was so personal and concerned that she could not say no to anyone.
I should have trained her better. Looking ahead, new employees will have a structured training program mixing textbook study with applications. The time will be split between learning procedures on the floor and movement throughout the plant learning processes and meeting associates.
It is very easy to confront someone with performance failures, human errors, and mistakes. Each is obvious because it contradicts the expected result. When the result is not achieved, the person's integrity and commitment is questioned. No matter how well the dialogue is carried, the perception is of criticism.
Incredibly, it seems difficult to find positive aspects of performance. When the results are achieved, you may mention it to the person. However, we mostly ignore the work put forth to achieve the result.
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3 comments:
You answered your own query 18 years later. In the DevelopU archives under "Continuous Improvement" there is a post called "Don't Always Focus on the Bottom Line." (It's one of my favorites)
There it states:
"Every thing he did was driven by a desire to make people happy and to help others in their work tasks. As a process oriented manager, you should put him in a position to maximize his skills and talents. This will almost guarantee great results from him."
It's always easier looking back to see where we "could have-should have."
"Margaret quit today." I bet in her mind it was extremely difficult to never be able to say "no."
"NO" actually serves as a protection for us. We have to be able to draw the line - that only comes with time and a certain level of maturity.
When we are young and so eager to impress, we still want to be all things for all people. Saying "no" I can't get that done is like admitting failure.
In reality, setting limits on how others occupy our time and resources is critical to performance. You cannot be all things to everyone at all times.
Saying "no, I can't...but Tom
can..." leads to developing excellent delegating techniques.
Just say no - "learn to delegate effectively" is my motto today. (I used to be like Margaret.) But it took me 40 years to get to this point.
Thank you for sharing your journal with us. It's very telling. Managers do well to remember: "However, we mostly ignore the work put forth to achieve the result."
It takes a thousand steps to get that ONE result to come to fruition - they should not forget that.
Steven,
Your post could not have come at a better time for me as I am back in a supervisor position and need the reminder to look for the good things my people are doing not just whats wrong.
Gilbert
I think this is very common in the work place. When a person does something right or "above and beyond" it is "what is expected, what we pay them for" when things don't happen as they should, we find faults and negatives instead of finding answers as to why the person is struggling to get the desired results. These struggles lead to insecurities and the reason most people will quit thier jobs. People have a hard time admitting they can't or don't know how to do something. As a manager we really need to find out why an employee is struggling and to find an answer to correct it instead of a "pep talk". Plus when things do go right a kind word or acknowledgement goes a long ways in making for a happy work environment.
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