Note: the following is not suggested or implied to be based on actual events. Rather, it is an amalgamation of years of observed events and actions among various people and places. It’s a comment on perception, and any references you may perceive to be based upon real persons or events are ultimately your perception, as no such claim is made here.
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I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” … or perhaps the more readily understood, “You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
The moral of both ’stories’, at least as they apply to my current diatribe, is this, plain and simple — if you want the good [or insert some other desired artifact; such as ‘performance’, ‘longevity’, or ‘loyalty’], then you’re going to have to accept the bad [again, or insert some other undesirable artifact such as ‘cost’, ‘time to delivery’, or ‘absolute brutal honesty and potent reactions to perceived ill-taken or unwise paths’] in stride.
For some people, this is a given — they realize immediately that the above is the constant that binds most (dare I say all) of our existence. Often, a ‘trade-off’ is necessary, where one will decide what is and is not important to their given dillema, and choose paths that may not be perfect, but satisfy the ‘mental compromise’ that the person has resigned theirself to. Here’s a good example — you need a new car (keeping the old one is out of the question for whatever reason). Now, you want a high output V8 engine, leather and the whole 9 yards, and you want it all for under $17 grand. … that’s not going to happen. It’s un-fucking-reasonable (yes, I just swore at you). You can pretty much have any ‘2 of the 3′, and that’s the compromise you make… give up a feature, or spend more money, but ultimately it’s a decision you make and you can’t blame anyone but yourself. So, you accept it and you ‘own’ it.
The same [dare I say ‘exact’] scenarios occur within any environment, and among any group of people.
But what if you weren’t buying a car?
What if you were tasked with running a company or an organization. On any given day you could be faced with decisions and tasks that may either be too numerous for any one person to handle, or you may be confronted by decisions or tasks which are not in your area of expertise. Under such circumstances, you would assign that task to someone that you have entrusted or have been assigned to handle such things, someone whose area of expertise it is. Typically, one of these entrusted personnel would then report back to you with 2 or 3 ‘options’ from which you could then choose… you could use your ‘mental compromise’ [of cost versus performance / time versus cost / time versus performance… or whatever] to pick which road you will ultimately travel down. However, over time, and when the facts are blatantly obvious to said entrusted person, you may only be presented with one option… for example, when finances are very tight, you may only be presented with the cheapest option, because the entrusted personnel are aware that it is the only path you will be able to take.
Occasionally, if you’re lucky, you’ll find yourself with a seemingly peculiar colleague [the term ‘odd bird’ comes to mind] that makes many of the daily troubles transparent — simply handling them, making the ‘mental compromsie’ for you [usually trying to keep in stride with your wishes, but occasionally deviating for various reasons - but ultimately solving the problems]. If you’re worth you’re salt, you take note of this, and you cut that person slack. Such a person may regularly put in extra hours, work on ideas and solutions at home, perform research and troubleshooting that is beyond the scope of their job-description, and pitch-in to lend a hand with just about anything if they see you could use some help. That is, obviously, the ‘good’. The ‘bad’ is that such people are often highly driven and take their jobs very personally. You have to take it personally if you’re going to be good at it. And the better you get, the more personal it becomes. The finest people in their craft never work “9 to 5″… they work until the job is done — period, and it doesn’t bother them.
What does, however, bother them is disregard for their craft, whatever it may be. Now, whether that disregard is based upon budgets and costs, time and available labor, or even upon a simple mis-communication or having forgot something… it doesn’t matter… it still bothers them. Here’s the ‘pisser’ though… if they respect you (and we’ll get to that in a minute), they’ll bring it up to you — addressing you directly. But if they feel you’ve shit on them or that said disregard is based upon arrogance, then you’ll send you what is commonly known as a ‘nasty gram’ [a snippy little email, describing the issue, the pro’s and con’s of it, and their ultimate standpoint on it]. ‘Nasty grams’ serve a good purpose, they cover the sender’s proverbial ass in such an event that a governing body may take action based on an action or lack of action by yourself. They also convey the senders general displeasure.
You can, however, avoid said ‘nasty grams’, maintain a good working relationship with valuable subordinates, and generally ‘keep the peace’ by doing one thing; it’s so simple, its scary — c’mon, you can guess it. No? Ok, I’ll tell you…
EARN THEIR RESPECT.
A person’s position, in itself, does not warrant the respect of a skilled professional [skilled professionals include doctors, laywers, engineers, tradesmen, drafters, smiths, scientists, etc. etc… - basically, anyone who if removed from their job would still be a ‘whatever’ because they earned the right to be recognized as such by either completing a lengthy training, having several years of on-the-job training, completing a degree, or any similar deal]. Some skilled professionals will never ‘bite back’ when you push them; this may be because they’ve been through the mill enough times and know that you’re not worth their breath, they simply hate conflict and desire to have a fluid working environment, because they honestly couldn’t care less, or because they’re not confident enough in their abilities or opinions to confront you — this goes back to the whole “the better you get, the more personal it gets” concept. (Be advised, if it is either of the last 2 options above, then you would be better off without them.) Either way, don’t for one minute dillute yourself into thinking that they respect you if you don’t deserve it.
A good leader will walk the oh-so-often-referenced ‘walk’ — he’ll accept facts produced by entrusted personnel, weigh opinions accordingly, follow up on requests for assistance / resources / or information, give feedback when rejecting proposals (”No… because [x, y, and z]” — rather than “No” — and just to be clear, “No, beause I’ll get yelled at” is not an acceptable answer), know when it’s time to reign in his personnel when they’ve gone off on a tangent, and ultimately know how to manage his people.
When one of your subordinates confronts you about a safety issue / NEC violation due to either a mis-step or conscious action on your part, and you respond by telling him that he shouldn’t be confronting you in such a blunt manner / shouldn’t be trying to push the responsibility or liability onto you / and should generally be ‘nicer’, then youjust dropped the goddamn ball.
You didn’t give an intelligent response - you didn’t even try. In fact, when you realized that you couldn’t come up with anything to refute the subordinate, you then add icing to the cake by chastizing him for his casual work hours (start / stop times)… then guess what you just did. You f-u-c-k-e-d up.
Had you addressed the subordinate’s legitimate concern directly, and then either agreed with the subordinate or explained with sound reasoning and legitimate facts why you disagreed, then the subordinate would respect your judgement due to your display of competence. You could then later bust the subordinate’s chops about his casual work hours, and the subordinate would be very likely to absorb and be ameanable to improving his ways.
Instead, you turned a dedicated skilled professional into a disgruntled ‘clock-puncher’… someone who will surely be there on time every day, and will leave on time every day, and will give you no less than what is required to maintain his employment — but no more than what is required to maintain his employment. And you will have lost out on one of the most dedicated people you’ve ever had the chance of working with.
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