The Plumbing and Carpenter Crew. Leadership Lessons!
This was a story shared by my father long time back, when he was constructing his house after retirement . He had engaged two contractors - one for plumbing and and another for woodwork .
The lessons can be drawn on the value one brings and ofcourse , the leadership .
The plumbing crew would arrive at different time and wait for the project leader to show up. When he did , they would gather, and the project leader would tell everyone what to do. The leader would depart to the next site and the rest of the crew got to work mumbling to each other things the client does not want to hear.
When something unexpected happened the rest of the crew would stop working or go absolutely slow, and ask my father to page the project leader ( those days we had the pagers ) and wait for him to return and decide what to do.
The job would get done without a sense of ownership and pride. The client , in this case my father , would wonder about quality and hoped he never needed to call them back, for everyday , there would be some shortage or absenteeism of the plumbing staff.
The second crew of the carpenters was in contrast. They arrived on the job together, parked their bicycles in a row , hung their lunchboxes on the nails and would get to work , after wishing my father . The second crew began with a meeting and the project leader present at the site would instruct them on what needed to be accomplished for the day, or the week ahead, and would discuss with his staff
“How shall we organize to do the job ? Where shall we start? Any shortage of the material? " etc etc . He would discuss on the seasoning of the wood - what kind of wood has to go to the doors, and what for the almirahs and cabinets .
He and his team would listen to each other as they discussed who will do what, the order of the work, and its relationship to everything else that is being done on the job. Within 10 minutes they had a plan and would get to work. The project leader would assure my father that he would come during the lunchtime and invariably without much delay ,would arrive on his Rajdoot motorcycle . His commitment was fair and that gave my father a reassurance .As the carpenter crew members worked throughout the day, they would check with each other and my father , “Is there anything else you see that we need to do?” And they would do to the satisfaction of my father . They were more jovial kind and would even offer to share the lunch with him.
My father appreciated the ease with which he could discuss things with them and felt assured of the quality of their work.
What kind of team are you part of, in general ? The Plumbing team or the Carpenter team ?In management parlance, as they say , "Are you a single bagger or a double bagger ?"
Think Bigger, Better, Bolder, Beyond and Before Others ! Be Somebody!
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