Hoovers,
I need to elaborate on my comment to you re: 'what have you discovered you can live without in business, given the economy?' My Response: 'middle management. obvious'.
Simply put, I do not believe that middle management is the 'devil'. However, finding good managers is extremely difficult, add in the turbulent economy right now - what was bad middle management has now gone completely rancid.
A bit of history with my experience, I've only come across one good manager that I reported to directly over the years. The qualities that made him 'great' in my eyes were only but a few: supportive, good leadership, allowed me to make my mistakes and learn from them without the threat of being fired, provided guidance, did not ' manage' but lead his team and created an environment that celebrated new ideas and actually did something about it.
My experience right now with the role of middle management and actually has been occurring for the last 7 years, is a deterioration of their role. Serving to be nothing more than a hinderance and to be used and manipulated appropriately to ensure survival. Sad but true! I realize managers do have a tough leadership role, in that they do have to be the 'middle man' and enforce company policy and keep their team happy and motivated to do the best job they can. There is a fine line, I know. However, in times like these it is quite disturbing and sad to see managers either walking around in a state of numbness playing the 'yes man' role so well, in fear of their own jobs or worse, subscribing to the old tried and true method of micro management. UGH! In times like these my ideal manager would be one who, no matter how rough the outlook, takes absolute pride in their role as leader of a team, and inspires their team to be the best they can through leading by example.
To hear my manager respond to my question of 'what is the business plan moving forward?' response: 'I don't know, I'm just as much in the dark as you' ... this makes my skin crawl and makes my blood boil. It takes all of my will power not to raise my hand and slap him silly and say 'wake up man, do something, get out of the box and take ownership!'
But this comes from the top, I suppose, even upper management is walking around with their heads hung low. Every month we have a company 'pow-wow' session which as of late has been nothing more than a monthly 'pow - WOE' session. Every month I am hopeful that our ultimate leader would stand up in front of the group and inspire us, instead of bringing himself down to our level and in the supposed ditches with fear in his eyes giving a message of pessimism and uncertainty. I would expect someone in his position to be realistic, yes, but also to spark a 'fighting' spirit within all of us. Turn negatives into positives by giving different perspectives, remind every one that they are working for one of the best companies out there, and ask everyone to check themselves and ask some tough questions like 'do you believe in this company and all that it was built on, and all the values, product, the founder, etc. Do you believe in its survival?' If the individual response is No, then somehow they need to move on. I realize this last bit is a very touchy topic and not very easy to do. But at least a speech consisting of these elements would spur the individual to stop and think and ultimately assess their role in all of this and hopefully view from a different, more positive perspective.
Then this should be followed up with a statement like 'these are challenging times, yes, let's remain focused and remember what the ultimate goal is. Together we will make a difference, but we all must do our part and challenge ourselves to go above and beyond. Keep an open mind, and remain focused.!'
They say if you want change you should be the change. Well this is extremely relevant! And I do go about my business like this every day. I am grateful that I am a self motivator. I know what my values are and I have much passion for the company that has employed me for several years now. I only wish that others around me would feel the same, instead of living in a state of paranoia and wondering if today is going to be the day the axe falls...why oh why can't we get out of the box and into the future?!!!
In closing, I would expect my manager to be a true leader in times like these - not a 'yes man'. The ideal would be somewhat of a visionary. Someone who would find a way to cut out ridiculous 'red tape' and brick walls, that for no apparent reason stand in the way and prevent ideas, success, and progress from ever seeing the light of day. These walls put into place by their own hands delay progress way too long and serve no purpose!
This is my frustration with business today in this economy.
4 comments:
You raise a lot of good points here. It's when things are at their worst -- like in the current economy -- that real leadership is most needed, and real leaders face the strongest tests. As you say, now *is* the time for them to step up.
But I would offer this as well: you have motivation for yourself, which is great. But can you spread that around more? Can you help to infect your colleagues -- including the managers -- with more of a can-do mentality?
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not suggesting that the weight of running the company should fall on your shoulders. But if you're one of the few who can see the bright side, or at least see some way out of the fog the company is in, what can you do to communicate that better -- to evangelize it among your workmates?
Tim,
Thank you for your input on this. And I've held off responding because I had to absorb a few things that have happened since I sent this long winded message, and also take a long hard look into the mirror. It hasn't gotten much better. But to answer your questions about playing my part, I can honestly tell you that I have, and my colleagues who work closest to me, would agree. They even purchased a set of pom-poms recently, because I am always right there encouraging them!
But now, I can't find my cheerleader when I need it the most!
I recently attended my companies annual Sales & Marketing meeting where we discuss the outlook ahead, initiatives taking place, and a boat load of data and numbers. All of which are very necessary, however, still missing that basic ingredient of 'pumping' their employees up to help face the challenges ahead. I felt numb after the meeting.
Without going into too much detail, but I now find myself at a crossroads. For the first time, I am finding it hard to draw any motivation for myself.
A few factors play into this, one being the overwhelming lack of enthusiasm and follow through on making changes that mean something to follow along with the saying 'it's not business as usual'!
The other major factor here ( and really the straw that broke the camels back) is that our revenue targets were revealed in this meeting, which ARE very realistic. However, focusing on my departments individual target, I find myself completely dismayed. Keep in mind, I have been in this particular department for 3 years. It is a new department, and I have been a part of it from day one. So while I am not the 'manager' of the department I do feel I have valuable input and historical facts that the company could benefit from. And my mind reels at the fact that the company doesn't have these facts and figures at hand! I've tried, but it gets lost in the shuffle.
The current manager has been with us for 2 years now. He's always been open to my input and has used me as a 'right hand' man of sorts. Prior to the close out of this current fiscal year - we had an idea of what the projections would look like and what the results were going to look like = bad. We also knew that the coming fiscal year was/is going to be massively challenging. Early on )about 4 months prior) I had presented my manager with ideas, a positive message, and beginning stages of 'game plan' for the coming year - of which we are now 2 months into! At the time, the ideas were received well, but there has been no follow through.
So now that the writing is on the wall, we know the targets etc, I have found something statistically wrong with our departmental target. I have been raising the subject with my boss every day, and it always gets responded to with this ' I don't know what to say, I can't do anything about this, XXX knows this already, there isn't anything we can do".
So I spent a few days in tizzy over this, in that the VP knows there is an UNREALISTIC target placed on one of his departments that is vital, and yet he's let this happen? Add onto this, we've had all of our account base transitioned to another area of the Sales team, so all of that base revenue, revenue we would be building off of, is gone, essentially bringing us to a base of $0. Again - I can't go into too much detail here, but based on the last 3 years and the growth we've seen - this will slate us to come in BELOW target by about $10m++. This is demoralizing! And this is a total set up for failure.
So when I raised this topic with my manager, it fell on deaf ears. Fine. Because I am who am, I begin to think, 'Right, ok, let's move forward. Boss has a great strategy, he's been working on it, blah blah blah...!" I ask him, 'what is our game plan. Remember those ideas I had presented 4 months earlier? Feedback from VP? Presented to our VP?" Deer in head lights stare.
This terrifies me!
So now with no answers and silver lining, no game plan, how can I find motivation? Yes I love this company - but right now I feel like I am being let down 100% because it doesn't feel like we are all on the same page. And many things aren't being addressed. Items such as support mechanism within other departments, communication, etc. so many issues that affect our department and others, with no resolution. Without resolution there is no way we can succeed, because we will continue to follow the same path and make the same mistakes over and over again.
So my hopes were to have a nice pow wow session and pep talk from my boss this past Friday. This didn't happen. He reacted to me in a way that he felt I was lashing out at him, and claimed I was being too emotional. Maybe so, I am definitely frustrated. But am I expected to continue to have 'blind faith' that everything will work out? Don't think so.
I ended our session with a simple question: "What is it that is motivating you? Knowing all that we know?"
His response was horrifying but typical:
He looked at me in such a defiant manner and said: 'Where do I draw my motivation, I'll tell you where I draw my motivation...it's the fact that there are millions of people out there without a job that would love to be in our position..." .
That is all he said.
I cannot tell you how much this response disappointed me and saddened me. This spoke volumes of the person I thought I knew. A person who is expected to lead and lead by example. I now understand where his head is at. He had no words of encouragement, was not open to discuss ideas. With that response and lack of response he told me that he basically is looking out for himself only. And from my viewpoint, he is walking a path of failure!
I am hoping he took a long look into the mirror over the weekend and did a little self checking.
And has a better attitude this week.
I am not taking it lightly - and have some massive decisions to make.
Thank you for allowing me to 'vent' on you!
I appreciate your feedback.
Anonguardian: you need to leave the place yesterday.
Thanks Christopher - (as I write, a smile is sprouting on my face).
Give up. This would be pretty easy for me to do - if it weren't for the fact that I actually care about the future of this company. This is probably the biggest thing that is motivating me right now. If I walk away now, I will feel like I ran away. At times like these I always ask myself 'Ok, there are some hard core challenges, things are pretty bad right now, too many walls in the way. But is there anything MORE that I do to help rectify and get things back on track?" This is probably one of the biggest challenges I've faced in a long time because there are so many levels to it. I spent the whole weekend after this horrid meeting I had with my boss going over everything. I felt sorry for myself and really wanted to get the hell out, you know : cut my losses and go. But that lasted all of 5 hours. I am a fighter and when someone or something is being wronged - I don't back down.
Right now, my company, from my perspective, is being wronged. I can't stand by and watch it happen, when there are so many little changes that could take place that would have a powerful impact. When I asked myself 'is there anything more that I can do" let me tell you, the ideas were flowing, and I got my answer. Am I confident that these ideas will be acted on? Not sure, history would say no. But, the company has never faced this challenge before, and if there ever was a time to go 'all out' - this is the time. I really feel I have nothing to lose. I know if I don't give 1000% right now for my department, the cause is lost - and come next year, we get the results I expect if changes don't occur - I will be torturing myself saying ' you should've done this...you should've done that.."
Am I so egotistical that I feel that I have the answers to all the problems? NO!! But it's got to start somewhere, and as Tim said - infect others with the positive attitude and encourage ideas - etc. - My boss can do 2 things - either respect it and follow with it and take my lead and make some positive things happen - or do everything possible to make my life miserable with the goal of pushing me out the door. I'm ready for that worse case scenario. CYA. But on the flip side, I am ready for the BEST case scenario too, and that is the ultimate goal!
I guess you can say that I am turning it up a notch! This baby is on broil! And in the end, if all of these efforts don't pay off for the company, I will gladly walk away, but I will walk away knowing that I did everything within in my power to change things for the better.
Post a Comment