Tales of the Accidental Manager....

Read the sorry tale of Chris, who's only mental activity was jumping to conclusions!

Chris is a warehouse manager. He has an extremely busy life at work, deadlines to meet, customers to satisfy, meetings to attend, employees to sort out, financial constraints to monitor and so it goes on. Imagine Chris's irritation when it is brought to his notice through his weekly report that Sam's efficiency had dropped significantly. Sam is an experienced warehouse operative, and really should know better.

Unfortunately Chris only knows one way of dealing with poor performance, shape up or ship out! Sam is duly summoned to Chris's office and read the riot act, which becomes even more direct when frustratingly Sam seems to offer no real reason for it. Of course eagle eyed Chris keeps close tabs on Sam's performance for the next week, but it doesn't improve. Chris impatiently decides enough is enough and refers the matter to HR with the ultimatum to get rid of Sam....

Still angry when he arrives home, Chris just wants some quiet time but his exuberant 4 year old daughter Sarah has different plans. He has only been indoors a few minutes when Sarah starts to demand his attention and asks for things. The final straw is when she asks for sweets and Chris says: "No, you can have an apple, it's nearly dinner time". He then presents Sarah with a choice of 2 different apples, not knowing her preference. Without hesitation Sarah grabs both apples and bites into each one in turn. Chris is furious and his patience snaps: "You greedy little girl, what a horrible thing to do. You don't deserve either now, go to your room!"

Sarah's eyes fill with tears and she can barely get her words out: "...But, but Daddy, I was only trying to work out which one was the tastiest and juiciest so you could have it..."

A mortified Chris realises the wrong conclusion he has jumped to. As he slumps back in his armchair he wonders, has he done the same at work earlier that day with Sam?

Later the following day a report landed on Chris's desk from Pat in HR which confirms his worst fears. Pat has sat Sam down quietly and calmly asked them a series of questions to find out what was behind their poor performance. Very skillfully, Pat teases out that Sam is covering for a workmate Harry, who has hurt his back. Harry doesn't want Chris the manager to know he has a back problem for fear of being sacked. Sam and Harry have worked together for many years and always look out for each other.

Seems like Harry has been taking a short cut through the warehouse he shouldn’t be using. In his haste he slips and jars his back. Not wishing to reveal his shortcut to anyone, Harry keeps quiet about it.

When Harry’s slip comes to light, Pat looks in the area and finds some small ball bearings on the floor underneath the racks. At this moment a fork truck trundles by and some more ball bearings fall on to the floor from above.

Pat stands in the area for a while and again witnesses small ball bearings falling to the floor. As she looks upwards she can see they were falling from the corner of a box on the top shelf of the racking. Pat requests a reach truck so she can safely view the box much more closely. On closer inspection she can clearly see one corner is open and she can see right into the box and the exposed ball bearings.

Pat spots a watermark, and it becomes evident that at some point water has seeped into the box. The water has collected in one corner and eventually it has caused a hole to form allowing the ball bearings to fall out.

Coincidentally it has started to rain as Pat is high in the rafters of the warehouse inspecting the box. It isn’t long before the rainwater starts to drip through the corrugated roof where some fixings have come loose in a high wind.......

Chris reads the report and realises he has jumped to the wrong conclusion again, he wouldn't be making that mistake a third time!

The Management Lesson? We should make sure we fully understand the problem before we attempt to fix it. Often the root cause is buried deep, hidden from our imediate view. However when we spend time investigating why these things happen by asking the right questions, we often fix problems more thoroughly and prevent them from re-occurring.

Want to learn more about management and leadership techniques? You can now study online for a prestigious Chartered Management Institute qualification in Leadership and Management. Don't be an accidental manager, be a qualified success.

email: [email protected]

visit: www.tipsfgm.co.uk

#manager #qualification #skill #training #leadership #knowledge #cmi #accidental manager