Never Let Them Do Your Job

"Always consider whether the urgency of the end may compensate for the disagreeableness of the means."

--Nathaniel Hawthorne

How many times have we, as managers, been burned by asking for a subordinate to 'fill-in' or to take on a one-time-only, responsible duty---only getting severely burned for having faith in that person? "Too many times!" is clearly the answer. Yet, we continue to let it happen. As managers, we WANT to encourage our staff to grow. We WANT to give our staff more meaningful opportunities. We WANT to challenge them and broaden their skill sets.

But that's NOT what they want!! They, for the most part, want to be left alone. They want stagnation. They want solitude. They want to collect a paycheck with minimal effort. They aren't as motivated to excel or to develop new skills or to push themselves to the limits of their intellectual capacity to see what they're made of. They want to leave that to management--it's not their jobs.

Nevertheless, you'd think that if a boss asked his team to 'step up' just this one time---you know, to cover for him while he's out---you'd think the 'team' would be able to handle a short term inconvenience like that. Right?

Here's a real -life story about a 'team' that truly defined the 'disagreeableness of the means':

Charles was a mid-manager for a large company, and was scheduled to have a much deserved week of vacation during the summer. The last time he had a day off was Christmas Day, and he could hardly wait. A few days before his vacation, he received a call from his counterpart with a global company in a neighboring state. His counterpart, who actually out-ranked him and was pretty well known in the industry, requested a meeting. Of course, Charles' counterpart wanted to meet on the very Monday that would have been day #1 of his vacation!

Charles explained the situation, but his counterpart would not budge on the meeting date, "It's the only day my 10 colleagues and I can come and do a site visit of your operation." To which Charles rejoined, "I have a scheduled vacation that week, and you're only giving me 10 days notice....it's impossible for me to be here, but you're welcome to visit anyway. My staff will be more than happy to show you around." The counterpart agreed, so Charles handed the visit logistics over to his associate director, Mark. From there on out, Mark took care of all the logistics for the meeting---from making lunch arrangements to providing parking passes for the 11 guests.

Charles spoke with Mark 3 times about what he thought the guests would like to learn about, and it all seemed like a standard tour, with a little Q & A during lunch. "Standard stuff, no big deal," said Mark. Charles went on vacation, feeling like his counterpart would be well received.

When Charles returned from vacation, he discovered the meeting was a huge, fiery train-wreck!! On his way in the front door, 6 of the 10 people on Charles' staff complained to him about 'that Monday meeting from last week.' They complained that the visitors "asked too many questions that we couldn't answer," and upon further clarification, Charles learned that they WERE questions that could be answered, they simply were not answered due to laziness, apathy and ignorance.

It turns out that the guests asked common questions about typical statistics, like the number of daily outputs, the average number of hourly inputs, the annual sales data, percentages of customer demographics, etc. Number that should be rote memory for every one of the employees. Instead, they answered these common inquiries with such answers as:

1) We don't know.
2) We don't have those numbers.
3) Our boss has that information but he doesn't share it with us.
4) It's not our responsibility to know that information.

Talk about embarrassing! Talk about frustrating! Talk about pathetic! Charles almost blew a gasket, but before that happened, he asked his 'team' how they could be so ignorant. First, the information is not only GIVEN to them in an annual report each year, it is also TABULATED by THEM each quarter in the reports they give to Charles!! Second, the exact information that was needed is posted on their departmental website under "About Us", and third, if they were in doubt about anything, they should have simply referred to the annual report or left the question for Charles upon his return.

In anticipation of something like this possibly happening, Charles did 'warn' his counterpart that he might leave the tour wanting more info, so Charles offered to meet with him when he returned from vacation. And, in an effort to reach out and mitigate the damage his 'team' had incurred, Charles called his counterpart to schedule that meeting. Charles, called again the next week. Then he emailed his counterpart twice. No responses. No return calls, no email acknowledgements.

Charles had lost his credibility by putting faith in his 'team.' If you listen very carefully, you can faintly hear Nathaniel Hawthorne giggling......