Читать книгу The Faithful Manager: Using Your God Given Tools for Workplace Success - Anthony E Shaw - Страница 14

One of the most important elements in dealing with people successfully, if not the most important element, is Listening. So the next time someone at work states, “What I’m saying is . . .” you should be able to respond honestly, “I hear you. I know what you’re saying. I’m listening to you.”

This book has two starting points in my life, both of which intimately involved my ability to listen.

The first was when I was asked by the Mayor of the City of Yonkers, NY to become his Deputy. For eight months I was in charge of Yonkers’ municipal corruption investigations. In Yonkers, that made me part of a growth industry; Yonkers was one of, if not the most, corrupt cities in America.

Loan sharking on government property. Selling public offices. Steering government services to unqualified friends and benefactors. Yonkers had it all. Every time the politically driven investigators from outside the City came in to look at my conduct, I was cleared. In fact, years later I met one of the most vociferous critics of the administration in which I served, at a reception in Albany, NY. She took my hand, smiled and said she knew me from somewhere. I replied, “You investigated me three times and three times found me clean!” She laughed, gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, “Let’s be friends.”

Well, after eight months of doing what I enjoyed, solving complex problems and bringing service back to the residents, the Mayor asked me to be his Deputy. It wasn’t what I signed on for but when a mayor asks you to serve, you serve. For over two years, I served the people of Yonkers as their Deputy Mayor.

On the first day I assumed that office, the Public Works Commissioner resigned. He assured me it wasn’t my fault, he just couldn’t work with the rest of the administration. I thanked him for his service and he warned me, “Beware of who you trust.” This would be difficult for me to do because I have a tendency to be open and trusting in my dealings with everyone.

The Public Works Department, or “the DPW” as Yonkers citizens called it, was a customer service mess. Streets weren’t cleaned regularly, only the ones in the districts of powerful council members. Recycling meant emptying the recyclables into the backs of garbage trucks full of garbage. Snow removal didn’t happen in some parts of town. Autumn leaf pickups from one part of town often found their way to huge rotting piles in front of residents’ homes on the other side of the City.

The responsibility to fix this was mine. I was accountable to the residents, including the Mayor and there were 150,000 pairs of eyes on my performance. But I wasn’t alone in this job. I had an army of Teamsters who picked up the trash, cleaned the streets, plowed the snow, removed the leaves, and recycled the recyclables. They were a group of several hundred men and women, who had endured years of political manipulation, from all sides, and tried their best to do their jobs.

On my first day on tour of the City with Al, the lead DPW Enforcement Agent, he turned to me and said, “Someone wants to meet you.” He drove us to an old City building and took me to a basement office. It was as if we were in an old movie about a tough town and the new sheriff was going to be ambushed.

Sitting in the basement office was the boss of the Teamsters local. I’ll call him Tony Beef. He wasn’t a large person, physically. In fact, he had fought and beaten cancer more than once so his voice was a deep growl with a hint of gravel in the delivery.

“Tony Shaw. I wanted to meet you. I hate your boss, the (bleeping) Mayor! I’m going to close the doors at City Hall after I kick him out! But you, I’ve heard good things about. Are you going to be fair to my men?” Word for word, this is what he said.

I responded, “It’s unfortunate you hate the Mayor. I love him and I’m loyal to him. I plan to stay in City Hall for another term with him. I’ve heard a lot about you. Not all good but you are the head of the union and I respect that. I’ll be fair; will you be honest with me?”

“I’ll be honest. Treat my men fairly and I’ll watch your back. But you watch your front, not because of me but there are plenty of people on your team who will screw you.” Except he didn’t say “screw.”

We shook hands. I admit my knees were shaking too. I knew he was right. There were members of the administration who didn’t agree with my approach to the Teamsters and wanted me to fail. If I was fair in dealing with our workers, Mr. Beef would represent them and be fair in return dealing with me. That meant if I caught someone not doing his or her duty properly, I would manage that by the union contract and discipline accordingly, up to and including firing. Tony Beef had the legal duty to represent the union members. I had the legal and moral duty to ensure the City delivered its services. I said to him, “I’m told the union manages the DPW. If it’s true, it’s over. I manage the DPW.”

He looked at me and smiled. “If the union does run the DPW it’s only because you people haven’t managed it like you should!” We both laughed because he was right. The duty to manage fully and properly is management’s alone. Says so in every union contract I’ve ever read. Usually management hasn’t read the contract and that’s where the problem starts.

After meeting Tony, I decided I had only one strategy to do my duty for the City and the Mayor who placed their trust in me: Listen.

I went out to the garages, work sites, lunchrooms, and anywhere else City workers gathered. I introduced myself and said “I’m here to listen to what you have to say. I never collected trash or plowed a snowy street in my life. You’re the experts and you’re also City residents. How can we do this better, quicker, cheaper?”

No one in my position had ever done this before – admit his ignorance, shut up and just listen. The response was some workers didn’t know what to think, some didn’t trust me, but some had waited for years to voice their ideas.

We plowed through six snow and ice storms my first winter. We weren’t perfect, we were learning under fire (really under ice) but we were measurably much better than ever before. Neighborhoods where previously Mother Nature melted the snow before a City plow got there, finally saw snow removal equipment within hours of the storms. At a neighborhood meeting many months after that first winter, a woman stood up and said, “Deputy Mayor, we’ve never met but you had the streets around my children’s school plowed right after I called your office. That never happened before. I just wanted to say thanks.” That made my job worthwhile.

Why were we better? Because we put managers in the streets, on the plows with the workers and made them learn from each other. I rode with three great guys, long time union members, who taught me how to plow snow and remove ice. Their practical ideas contradicted many of my impressions about delivering these services but their ideas worked.

One more example: the City had never met its recycling target set by Westchester County. Never. Not even close. And the overtime budget for trash removal and recycling was out of control by about 150%! My solution was to ask the sanitation workers what were we doing wrong and how do we fix it. You would think a worker wouldn’t suggest ways to cut his or her own paycheck. You would be wrong.

The workers told me three things. First, the overtime pay was blood money because they didn’t want to haul refuse for 10 hours a day. Second, most of them had second jobs; some even took care of their kids. They wanted to leave work at a decent hour with the job done for the day. Third, if the City radically changed the trash removal and recycling pick up schedule, the job would get done, the recycling numbers would go up, and overtime would go down. This wasn’t a consultant’s recommendation. This was straight from the workers’ mouths and hearts.

And it worked.

Recycling complaints went from ten a day to once a week. Designated pick up days saw all the recycling collected. No more commingling garbage and recyclables. The workday was eight hours. Overtime dropped to under 1%.

The local newspaper, leaping before it looked, reported the City had yet again missed its recycling goals. Then I showed them the County figures. Yonkers had not only met its goals but adding in leaf composting and recycling motor oil, Yonkers had surpassed its goals. The local paper had to print an op-ed column by me, quoting the County’s official report that confirmed by the numbers that Yonkers had more than met the target.

There is one other lesson in listening that I experienced, leading me to write this book.

On April 1, 2003 at 8:00 PM, I was driving back to my home in Westchester from Darien, CT. I had worked late and then stopped at a friend’s restaurant for dinner.

The road was wet from an early evening rain. The weather was turning cooler. I was driving my new SUV and I was stopped at a light on Route 22 in North White Plains, a road and an intersection I encountered going and coming every workday. As the light turned green, I put my foot on the gas to go up the short incline at the intersection.

The next three seconds were a blur – the SUV’s wheels skidded on the slick roadway, then lifted up as the 3000 lb. vehicle hydroplaned and swerved out of control into the incoming lanes of traffic. I struggled to turn the steering wheel, only to become aware that it and I were no longer controlling the flying vehicle. I realized I was headed straight for a telephone pole that was once to my left but was now in front of me. I didn’t have time to think I was going to die. My life didn’t flash before my eyes – there wasn’t enough time. A half-second before impact, the vehicle made a quarter-circle turn as the passenger side wrapped around the telephone pole.

As the safety glass sprayed around me, the steel frame of the vehicle pushed in and around, and the passenger side safety curtain deployed, I understood three things:

1.There had been no oncoming traffic or I would have slammed my vehicle (at upwards of 90 mph) head-on into another speeding car or truck.

2.Anyone who had been sitting on the passenger side of my vehicle would have died instantly.

3.I was still alive, and unhurt, for a reason.

My vehicle was totaled. I unbuckled myself, brushed some glass pellets from my hair and walked away from the vehicle. A police officer arrived at the scene and said, “You were the driver in that wreck? You’re walking around? I don’t believe it.”

When I went to reclaim my belongings from the wreckage the next day at the junk yard, the woman behind the desk said to me, “You were in that car? And you’re alive?”

I listened and learned that I am a fallible but resilient person and that the Creator isn’t finished with me down here yet.

“I really cannot count all of the times God has saved me from my own idiocy and carelessness. I should not really be alive. To Him, my endless praise and thanks. Literally, I should have been dead or in prison a dozen times and He saved me. I don’t know why, but I am grateful.” Ben Stein, Fleeting Beauty

Amen.

So I’m writing this book to make a difference in your life and share my story with you. Every workday for over thirty years I’ve had the privilege of talking to managers about problems, usually their immediate challenges in the workplace. I’ve done a lot of listening and learning. Often, the only thing another human being wants is for someone to just listen.

One of my friends, Rich has been an in-house recruiter for Fortune 500 companies for over 20 years. He has worked for IBM, Stanley Tools and several other large, successful organizations. For a number of years he was the recruiter on my human resources team in the freight business.

A manager in one of his previous companies told him, “Every time I come into your office and tell you my problems, you always give me the right answer. And I always leave feeling so much better. Thanks.”

These were heartwarming words except Rich reports that he almost never gave the manager an answer. He just listened. No advice. No readymade solutions. He just listened intently and with empathy because this manager was baring his soul about work. Now the manager didn’t work for Rich and Rich didn’t work for the manager. They worked for the same company but not in the same department.