Marty was at a loss to explain why he was losing his most talented people. His office was upscale, roomy cubicles, good benefit package and competitive wages. I asked about his managers. Aside from the CFO and the HR person, there were two project managers running thirty technicians in the field.

“So, Marty, tell me, you have managers running the projects, but who is running the technicians?”

“Well, the Project Managers tell the technicians what they need and the technicians do the work.”

“Marty, the Project Managers run the projects, but who is running the technicians?”

“We used to have a superintendent and a foreman, but we hired an efficiency consultant who told us our projects would be more profitable if we eliminated those positions. He said the technicians, most of them had worked for us at least two years, they should be able to figure it out. He said we should call them – self-directed work teams.”

“So, why the turnover?” I pressed.

“I don’t know,” Marty replied. “In our exit interviews, our technicians said they were always getting yelled at for things that weren’t their fault.”

“So, who is yelling at them? And who is their manager?”

“You know, they get yelled at by everybody. The client yells at them, the project manager yells at them. The Vice-President yells at them. But if you pressed me to identify their manager, they really don’t have one.”

“So, what do you think the problem is?”