Читать книгу NEXT STOP: UNSTOPPABLE - Malte Stöckert - Страница 12

Chaos and the Manager’s Pile of Tasks:

Micromanagement and Other Leadership Principles, or How Subordinates Become Naysayers

Thomas brings up his master plan with his team again. But it’s not all smooth sailing. The team is multidisciplinary, which Thomas must balance with the thousand things suddenly on his mind during the ramp-up of a new upper mid-range car they’re going to be working on. He has to deal with ALL the logistical requirements, ensuring that the right materials arrive at the installation place, in the right quality, and at the right time. That’s where his team is supposed to come in. But the team is young, inexperienced, and not familiar with the market, nor have they learned how to put pressure on suppliers with delinquent or poor-quality deliveries.

Thomas tries to gain control over the situation, including the small tasks. His tool of choice is a big board where all the daily tasks are written, assigned to individuals, and given deadlines and specific times. Every morning at 8:00 a.m. sharp, he expects his team to gather at the board and report back to him on what’s been completed and what’s still left.

On the first morning he’s in front of a motivated team, sensing they’re ready to learn something and move forward. They participate in the discussion with interest and willingly accept tasks. However, he already notes that some are reluctant to commit to completion dates or even basic times. That’s not too good, he thinks, but he leaves it alone for now.

He receives additional tasks from his customers’ contacts and from suppliers throughout the day, which he’s happy to delegate to team members. So, he schedules a new meeting for the early afternoon. Thomas is ready to distribute the new tasks but encounters the first grumpy answers describing how the morning tasks haven’t been completed yet, and the team needs more time to finish those before taking on anything new.

Fine, Thomas thinks. He expects his team to be present and ready at 8:00 a.m. the next morning. The next morning comes. Thomas notes that not even 50% of the distributed tasks have been completed yet. Considering everything he wrote down yesterday and everything else he came up with during a restless night, Thomas sees how the tasks on the board are quickly piling up. It’s all starting to get a bit confusing.

Not all team members are present at the meeting the following morning, and those who show up STILL haven’t completed their assigned tasks.

Now, Thomas is frustrated. After all, he had such a good plan on how to proceed, not to mention all the motivation in the world to meet the special challenge. He just doesn’t understand why the others on his team can’t seem to grasp the importance of the tasks.

Thomas changes his tone and toughens up, becoming more demanding of his team members and setting even shorter deadlines because he wants things to finally get done.

At the end of the week, he realizes that only a fraction of what he set out to do for his team had in fact been done. Thomas, now completely annoyed by his team’s lackluster performance, mutters to himself, if you want something done right…. He heads into the weekend frustrated, continuing to ponder how this could have happened.

Finding his resolve, he makes another plan, this time to only pursue targeted tasks. One task at a time and then he just has to get his team to help him.

So, Thomas bears down on the tasks with pressure and urgency, addressing his team members individually when needed. This seems to work, and Thomas manages to get a few bigger chunks out of the way which have been bugging him for a while now.

When he gets tasks back to him from his team members, he looks closely at the results and critiques, improves, and corrects where he can. Thomas thinks that’s when the team learns the quickest about what he expects from them.

Slowly but surely, he gets a hang of the work method and is happy to see that at least a few tasks are getting done now. Thomas meticulously keeps track of the tasks on the board too. A good feeling begins to set in as the humongous to-do pile slowly diminishes; however, he also notices that a lot of tasks are still being handed in too late.

For the first time, Thomas has to report the project’s overall progress to his superiors. It becomes quite clear to him, though, that they’re not satisfied with the results so far. So, he sits down again over the weekend and reorganizes the tasks, responsibilities, and deadlines. Everything. By Sunday evening he’s pleased with his plan and wants to put it into practice with his team right away on Monday.

Monday comes. Only half of the team members are present. Thomas doesn’t like this at all. When the rest finally show up in the afternoon, he has a few critical conversations with them about attendance. Thomas is supposed to report to upper management again on Thursday. The closer the deadline gets, the more nervous he gets because his team simply can’t get their tasks done in the allotted time.

The team’s performance on Thursday is a disaster. Thomas’s superiors question his competence, mostly about how he’s leading his team. Thomas leaves the meeting completely frustrated and decides that enough is enough.

On Friday morning, he approaches his team in a visibly bad mood and confronts them with the poor results. Quivering with rage, he lets out all his frustration while the team members stare at him anxiously and begin to back away. Thomas gets scared. Did he overdo it? He needs the team’s input. It won't work at all without them. Thomas abruptly breaks off the meeting and withdraws. Completely confused and unsure of himself, he nervously paces the halls.

But he’s able to pick himself up again come afternoon and tries making another plan. In the meantime, the pile of tasks has become a mountain; completing everything seems an insurmountable goal, now.

Suddenly, there’s a knock at Thomas’s door: a relief that tears him out of his panic-stricken thoughts. It’s Petra and Oliver, the supplier supervisors. Thomas invites them in. They calmly take a seat at the small meeting table and then, with a thieving grin on their faces, hand him their resignations.