People Are Not Pawns

"I am tired of being a pawn."

I remember the conversation clearly. The woman who stated it was someone who worked for me and someone I learned so much from during our time together, which is what every manager should expect from their direct reports. I expect, and try, to learn more from the people working for me than I could ever teach them. Never the other way around.

When she said those words to me I immediately defended my actions, one of quick-thought, moving too fast, and career-altering shuffling. I remember saying, and thinking, at the time that this was just part of the job. Deal with it. This comes with the territory. That employees are, to some extent, pawns for their managers to move up and down the chess board. I may have even made a failed reference to a sports team.

I was the captain. She was the player. I controlled the strategy and the movement.

And, yes, that’s true. As a leader we do need to move our team around and shuffle and hire and sometimes even fire to produce results. To move forward.

However, thinking of your team members as pawns, which at the time I indeed was, is bound to fail. The 8 pawns a chess player controls, moves, are all the same. They’re identical. No human being is the same. And moving people in abrupt ways to different cities, roles, teams, floors, even desks, can and will be traumatic. Movement, I think, needs to be calculated and thoughtful. Not hurried and rushed.

Thinking of your employees as pieces of a game to manipulate and maneuver how you see fit will backfire.

It’s only when we look at our employees as living, breathing, emotional creatures that a clearer picture emerges. We must set up people for success. The only way to do that is to invest time and energy into understanding not only what they can endure and what they are capable of, but also what they feel and how they feel. This is critical in the equation of success. We’re not the same. We all cannot do the same jobs, or at least not with the same results. And we will only succeed as a leader if we can build roles and responsibilities around the talents of the people we trust, rather than trying to fit people’s square peg personality and passions into a round hole.

Emotional motivation. Investing in being present with the people who work for you. Understanding their motivations within your walls and once they leave them. Taking time and being careful with decisions of movement and upheaval. Listening. Befriending. Connecting. Slowing down.

These are the movements the chess player, the captain, the manager should make with people.

Pawns and robots require otherwise.