You may ask yourself, “Self, why would he call his blog that?” My answer would be two parts.
First, please seek help. Talking to yourself can be signs of mental illness.
Second, I, and many others, have noticed a certain synchronicity to the events in my life. Situations where I am confronted with irony of the most cruel sort. Possibly, much of this comes from an examination of events which is way too deep. For an example that many can relate to in their life, I see MUCH irony in the constant conflict between production and quality that most companies seem to enforce. I support both ideas in principle, but the flux between the two is something that many seem unable to stabalize. Here is exactly what I see to be the inherent ironic conflict.
The core of this kind of irony, to me, is this. Often, the manager or director who is coaching or encouraging the escalation in production or quality is not giving any suggestions on how the goal should be accomplished. If this is for an employee that is not meeting the goal already, and they know the goal, then having a meeting with them does not amplify productivity and them worrying about production does not encourage quality and fear of quality scores will lower production, etc.
Improvement does not just come from wanting it. Would a teacher be successful if they just told their students, “You need to learn how to add and subtract or you will fail this class” without teaching them HOW to add and subtract? Application of techniques can be encouraged, true, but the skills and techniques do not spring fully formed from the head of Zeus like Athena. They must be learned before they can be applied.
This leads to another irony that I have noticed. I will state that anything given in this blog without supporting documentation is my opinion, not a fact. It is my blog, however, so it works for me. I believe that, when you have a situation such as the one above, the employee feels, subconsiously or not, that the manager has some seceret or tip that they are holding back. Otherwise, the person would not be a manager. At the same time, the manager feels one of two things, either they think that the person has something that they are doing wrong or that the person is not able to do the job and is just running out the clock till they are let go.
I have seen the occasional misguided, in my opinion, attemt by the manager to ask “What can I do to help?” This is not an effective question for several reasons.
- If they know what they are doing wrong, they would have corrected it already.
- If there is a situation where someone is blocking their success, it rarely pays with most managers to comment on it. This is espcially true if it is a situation of various management groups posing different goals and priorities to the employee.
- This leads to a lack of confidence in the manager and a loss of trust in their judgement either from:
- “God, if he does not know what to do, how can I figure it out?” or
- “Is he so dumb that he cannot see the problem?”
- This also puts the full responsability out of the manager’s lap and into the employee’s. In my view, a manager-employee relationship is a partnership and nothing can occur that is one sided while still being productive for the group.
A better way to approach this would be to use examples. Work with everyone and examine the best and the worst of what they do. Sharing the best and working to weed out the worst is good. Asking the same question above but rephrasing as “Would it help if we did this?” or “Could we change the structure of your day in this way and see if we can work out the issues like that?” and combining it with a suggestion that has been seen to work. This eliminates the issues 1 and 3, and goes a long way toward removing issue 4. Issue 2 is best dealt with, in my view, by working with any other management closely and coordinating what is being given to the employees. Not always easy, but getting the big bonuses rarely is.
Ironic, isn’t it, that so many people IN management forget to share the things they did that let them be outstanding employees and advance themselves. This does not really apply to those managers that are REALLY unqualified for their positions or those who never did any work other than directly for their dad… er… their boss. But, I say if all you know how to do is to shmooze and brown nose, then share that too! Heck, promote enough brown nosers out of your team and you may wind up with someone that knows what to do.
My company, I don’t think it would be appropriate to say who that is, has really been encouraging the sharing/teamwork ideas lately. Focusing on actual information rather than hypothetical percentages. Six Sigma is a good principle to work under, once you know what it means and how it works. You cannot run headlong into a project without condsidering methods. However, my previous companies, even groups of people I have known, still operate on the gut instinct of “You are not doing it right. Go do it better!” direction.
The lessons I have derived from these types of situations, since I do tend to over analyze them, have lead me to one of two conclusions.
- Life is incredibly complex and brings us face to face with that which we need to be confronted. It is our ability to recognize and respond to the challenge that makes us who we are.
- God, who or whatever he/she/it is, gets really bored sometimes and my life is God’s version of a sitcom.
I am not sure which option to fear more…
