ENTRY # 2: The Management Course.

Three points: hire tough, coach everyone to become better, and let go of those who can’t meet the standard

Okay dear diary, don’t get all excited already because, no, I haven’t been promoted to a management staff yet, and no, you won’t be getting that Michael Kors’ leather dairy jacket anytime soon; but dear dairy, I heard those three points this morning and all that’s been happening the past few weeks suddenly made complete sense and the future instantly got brighter! Okay, so I’ll take a breath here and explain.

I first perceived the change at the office two weeks ago; it was an added weight on the already existing unease. I figured the added tension had something to do with Macy’s resignation but I thought it would blow over soon enough. Macy had been very good at her job, she had a good relationship with everyone, she was one of those people who genuinely cared, and she had suddenly packed up one morning and resigned out of the blue; and just after a raise and a golden performance award had been given to her. Naturally, everyone was upset; half the staff thought she was ungrateful and full of herself (assuming to play God on people’s emotions) while the other half could almost swear that there was more to the saga than the management was letting on. Several conspiracy theories were spun
and almost every action became a potential threat to losing one’s job by ‘forced resignation’. Adding fuel to an already raging inferno were the actions of our Unit head Mr. Olivier. As the days went by, the usually friendly and intuitive boss we knew seemed to withdraw into an inexplicably thick shell.  His usual impeccable style physically diminished and he became just slightly impatient with everything and everyone, he even lost his signature hats! It was a horror to watch these transformations on Mr. Olivier! The Olivier we all knew was fun, easily pleased, handsome with graying temples, a signature hat, and very French! He usually took us to dinners as a team to celebrate what we all called our ‘out of the box achievements’; summarily, Mr. Olivier was not like every other manager and he knew it.

Well recently, Mr. Olivier was worse than most of the other managers in the group and nobody knew why! We all knew we were losing a buddy, and we couldn’t help the situation. With Macy gone, and Dele before her, the work load was crushing and we weren’t meeting our target as a department any more. Truth is, we haven’t been meeting our targets for the past three months which was very uncharacteristic and upsetting. Since the New Year (after the group retreat and staff awards at the HQ), a new wave had passed through the department; an unprecedented raise in cynicism, blame shifting, and task avoidance had raged on and on until even the most patient and high performing staff like Macy and Paul had given up at some point and joined the binge. And then our figures began to fall, and kept falling, and no one knew how to turn the tide, so we all indulged in ‘pity fests’, where we blamed all our sorrows on the management. We would all come up with a thousand things the management should have done differently to make our jobs easier and enable us get back to being the effective team we once were. Mr. Olivier was usually our host at these pity parties and we all agreed that he was not like the rest of the ‘oppressive’ management.

At some point however, our pity fests and attacks on the management became insufficient to quell our restlessness caused by our ever falling performances; so we brought the cynicism home. Every individual became an institution in themselves- a body of extra ordinary intelligence- while every other person was perceived as wrong and incompetent, causing negative criticism to reign supreme. It wasn’t uncommon to hear harsh statements being tossed back and forth between colleagues, while accusing fingers were quick to be pointed, and blames passed around swiftly like hot rocks. We were all losing it and no one was willing to take responsibility. Then a month ago Dele left the company, and Macy followed two weeks after. Not only were these high performers, they had been with the company longer than all the rest of us, including Mr. Olivier! It seemed like the plot of whatever was happening was fast thickening and spiraling to a climax. 

Then yesterday morning, Mr. Olivier had walked in and made a beeline for his office, as has been his style for the past few weeks. Shortly after his door closed, I received mail from him tagged ‘Strategic Planning Assessment’. The mail contained only one question:

“What is the goal statement of this team?”

I was puzzled by the question. Why would Mr. Olivier request I tell him the goal of the team? Was it some kind of new employee test? But I wasn’t that new, I was six months old on the job! I silently chafed. Or did I do something wrong and was this some sort of pre-query exercise? I was at a loss at what to do. By this time, the tension in the department was so thick, one could almost cut through it with a knife.  I was convinced that asking anyone for help would be the same as hanging myself out on a door nail for open criticism. Then it hit me! This may not be a trap at all! In fact, it was the exact opposite; maybe Mr. Olivier wanted me to set the goal statement for the team because he had finally noticed how good I am at my job, no that’s incorrect, he must have noticed that I was the best at the job! I had heard rumors that Mr. Olivier would be appointing an assisting unit head to cover for his upcoming sabbatical which was two months away; I couldn’t help but wonder if he had already chosen me. At least in two months’ time, I’d be eight months on the job and may actually qualify! I was euphoric. I spent the most part of that day researching and preparing the team’s goal statement. When I sent my reply to Mr. Olivier, I was pretty confident that I had done a great job. By the close of business, I received a mail notifying that a departmental meeting had been scheduled for 10:00am the next day, and the world became my peapod! Mr. Olivier had accepted my goal statement and he had was going introduce it to the team; and maybe introduce me as the new assisting unit head! I couldn’t sleep a wink that night, I was just too excited. Was I being introduced into the big league already? This must be a miracle.

I walked into the boardroom by ten on the dot today, and surprisingly, all my colleagues were already seated, with everyone concentrating on one thing or the other, there were very little side talks, and only when necessary; this was very strange. Usually, everyone delayed at their station pretending to be busy or being genuinely busy; and those who made it early to the boardroom usually kept up a lively conversation until the meeting commenced. I grabbed a chair as Mr. Olivier walked in, there was something positively different about him this morning, and he had his hat on! After the necessary complements, Mr. Olivier got down to business.

“I want to congratulate every one for the successful completion of yesterday’s assessment. Allow me to use this opportunity to clarify that I do not plan on going a sabbatical; neither do I have any intention to appoint an assisting unit head”.

Wait a minute, everyone? I thought it was just me? And what’s all this about not appointing an assisting unit head? I look at the faces around me and I could see my shock reflected there; then I realized that we had all fallen for the hoax. Mr. Olivier had somehow initiated the rumor of appointing an assisting unit head and then sent the same assessment to everyone on the team, and we had all imagined that we were uniquely chosen because we were the best. Somewhere, somehow, we had all completely forgotten we were a team and were supposed to work together and not against each other; and Mr. Olivier was very much aware of that.

“The responses I got from you all yesterday were very inspiring, and naturally, very different because there was no team work. This simply shows that we’ve been sailing blind, each trying to steer the ship in what he or she thinks is the best direction, forgetting that it takes a collective organized effort to make the ship move at all; am sure we are no longer amazed by our falling performance figures”. The room was now subdued as realization dawned on everyone.

 “Off course, being the captain of this particular ship, I take full responsibility for all our errors so far; no more blame shifting and accusing the management. The performance of everyone in this department is a direct result of my performance in leadership thus, my tenet to the leadership of this department shall be to hire tough, coach everyone to become better, and let go of those who can’t meet the standard” Mr. Olivier paused at this point for emphasis, while we all shared questioning looks. This was definitely not the playful, easy to please Mr. Olivier we knew, and we were all mentally sizing up this new version of him.

“It is quite unfortunate Dele and Macy left us, we will be filing up those openings by the end of the month. Right now, we must concern ourselves with clearly defining the goals of our team and work towards them and only them” Mr. Olivier was on a roll now, and we were all beginning to feel good about ourselves as a team; someone was finally in control, there was hope!

“From your different responses, I have been able to summarize our major goals as a team and they are: to treat each person on our team with dignity and respect, to deliver outstanding service to our customers, and to make profits for our company; anything outside of these should not be done on your official time”. Like everyone else, my pen flew across my note pad as I took down these points with as much gratitude as one receiving the directions to the location of the Holy Grail.
I was a little unsettled by one of the points however, so I asked “Mr. Olivier, we are not the sales team, we don’t interact directly with the company’s customer, how are supposed to deliver impeccable services to them?” Mr. Olivier gave me one of  his dashing smiles that would have made a less sturdy heart race mindlessly “well Ari, our definition of the word ‘customer’ just got broader, and everyone who depends on us or is affected by our output falls into that category; and that includes all other interfacing units and the company as a whole. Now we are all going to go back to our station and think up three things we are going to do differently to achieve our goals as a team”. 

The meeting broke up, and we all returned to our stations. A few minutes later dear dairy, I heard Dara (one of the biggest critics in the department) discussing a problem she’d been facing for the past two weeks with Sam and from all indications, they were both making minced meat of it. I looked around I realized the tension from the past weeks had disappeared; the familiar camaraderie we all once enjoyed was back in full swing.  I realized that in less than ten minutes, Mr. Olivier had transformed his team from a potential time bomb, waiting to explode in his face, to an efficient group. I knew we were no longer going to have that Mr. Olivier who was more or less a buddy, the host of pity fests and our accomplice in tongue lashing the management; but even though we had just lost a buddy, we had also gained a sound leader and that was much more important. After all, we had all given a part of our lives to the job, the best feelings came from the knowledge that someone was responsible for us; that someone was there to ensure we were not making a grave mistake by doing that.




(Disclaimer: Aria's Note is largely fiction; as such, names, characters, businesses, organisations, associations, places, events and incidents are product of the author's imagination. any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, events, locales, associations or organisations is entirely coincidental.)