Sometimes, I'm a little slow. The following is something that it took me a long time to realize, and even now, it's more something I know intellectually rather than viscerally.
You can't manage an organization, or deal with people, or live your life according to things that you've read. You can only do it according to things that you feel. The things that you feel may be informed, influenced, or altered by the things you've read, but you aren't likely to routinely act based on that. You may do so if you're thinking about it - gee, that article on food made it sound like perhaps a deep-fried Snickers bar isn't the best lunch; I'll just have a tofu salad instead -- but three days later you'll be eating the chocolate-covered raisins and hot buttered potato chips with gusto, only occasionally thinking I really shouldn't be doing this. It isn't until your view of what's right and permissible changes that your actions change.
Curiously enough, this all occurs to me as a follow-on to reading an article in today's Washington Post about Michelle Rhee, the schools chancellor in Washington DC, and how she's modified her style to accommodate the organizational and political realities of working in that environment. She's found that being famous not only does not translate into universal acceptance, but it can actually generate resentment and obstruction; further, people are more likely to be willing to listen if you talk to them rather than dictate from on high. They may not agree, but they're more likely to listen.
Well, gee, I thought, even I know that. When I was a manager, I thought exactly that. I'd read INC magazine and Fortune and Wharton and all of that; each of them would say that you have to engage people, you have to be clear and honest and forthright. I knew that. Catch was, I didn't feel that. The things I did every day were more driven by what I thought I was supposed to do than what I felt, in my gut, that I should be doing. Don't get me wrong, this was a lowly, menial management job; very little power, very little budget. But still, I had the ability to make changes, to encourage and motivate people, and I didn't use it, because though I knew it intellectually, I didn't know it so firmly that it became part of my guiding principles.
Put more broadly, I didn't realize that you have to believe in something before you can live it. I know that now. And sometimes, I even believe it.
2 comments:
I believe it.
I also believe that if I respect the job too much, I end up not respecting my co workers. That can, and has bitten me in the butt more times than I can count.
Off the cuff, I can only think of one manager who respected his people. What was funny was that he was a replacement when one left. We all shuddered, because he had the reputation of being a hardass-- and he WAS. Its just that he wasn't unreasonable-- he took the over-committments that the prior manager let us dig ourselves into, said to take our best shot at what they OUGHT to be, then he would personally call the customers and tell them what was the new date. We didn't have to take any grief from them. All we had to do was deliver on what we'd promised.
I ended up admiring that guy.
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