Miguel was stunned. At some point, he thought I was a nice guy, but now he was not so sure. He was already running a 10 hour staggered shift. We were about to expand to an 18 hour swing shift and expected Miguel to run the whole thing. Welcome to management.

“But I am already working as hard as I can,” Miguel protested. “How can you possibly expect more?”

“I expect more, because you are capable of more,” I replied. Miguel’s face turned blank. He was tired of fighting. He was tired of fighting both shifts, he was tired of fighting me, but mostly he was tired of fighting his own thinking.

“I can’t work this way any longer,” he resigned. “Something has to give. I am already in trouble with my wife. I hardly get to play with my kids. My golf clubs have rust on them.”

“And I want you to manage a longer work process with about double the headcount you have now. What are you going to change?”

Miguel looked at me, then back to the schedule on his desk. He put the pen down and let out a sigh.

“But, it’s my responsibility. I feel guilty if I’m not here and something goes wrong.”

“Miguel, you are in charge of this work area, running two shifts on staggered schedules. What if I told you, we were planning to ramp up production in two months, to add another shift to run 18 hours per day? What would you do, then?” Miguel’s eyes got wide. I raised my eyebrows in response. “What are you going to do then?” I repeated.

“Well, I don’t know, you would have to get a different manager for the other shift.”

“Miguel, you are the manager for this work area. Everything that happens here is your responsibility. I will not have another manager so you can blame each other for things going wrong. I want one person to be responsible for the area. That’s you.” I stopped to gauge his reaction.

“Well, how am I going to do that?” Miguel responded.

“That’s what I want to know, how are you going to do that?”

It was 6:30p when I stopped by Miguel’s office. “What’s up?” I asked.

Miguel picked his eyes up, off the paper, holding his place on the schedule with a ballpoint pen. “Just going over tomorrow. It’s going to be another big day. Three special orders to get out the door.”

“Where is everyone, why are you still here?”

“Oh, we shut down at 4:30p. My crew is up with the chickens, tomorrow we start at 6:30a. I run a staggered shift. The first guys get the day started, then we’re full strength by 7:30a. The first wave is off by 3:30p, while the second wave picks up the pieces for the day.”

“Why are you still here?” I repeated.

“Well, there is just a bunch of little things that have to be done each day. We are sort of out of control, huh? This won’t last forever. My schedule is getting better.”

“How long have you felt out of control?”

“Gosh, ever since I became the supervisor, I guess. But it’s going to get better, soon.” Miguel looked optimistic.

I didn’t believe him.

“I know I need to delegate more often,” Sharon explained. “But, it just takes that little bit of extra time that I never seem to have. It’s just easier to do it myself.”

“How many hours do you put in each day?” I asked.

“Well, ever since I became a manager, probably ten or eleven. It seems the harder I work, the more work there is to get done.”

“Sharon, do you know the reward for long hours of hard work?” I could see she was going over the obvious answers, dismissing them one at a time. In the end, she had no answer.

“You’re right,” she said, “at this point in my career, I don’t need another plaque to put on the wall. I don’t need to be Employee of the Month, again.”

“The just reward for long hours of hard work is more long hours of hard work.” I stopped. “Is that why you are working so hard?”

Sharon stared, first at me, then the wall behind me, then I think her stare began to burrow into her brain.

“Unless your intention is to work even harder and for longer hours, you have to begin to work differently.”

Victoria looked a little down. “Why the long face?” I asked.

“Ugh,” she replied. “I think I just entered the J-curve. We had to let two more people go last week, I had to reassign some of their work to other people. Empowerment, you know the drill. It’s tough getting people to do new kinds of work. Their new responsibilities are suffering, big time.”

“What do you think is the problem?”

“The new things they have to do aren’t that difficult, but I am getting resistance. And some of the new decisions they have to make, well, maybe, with a little experience they will do better.”

“Describe the resistance,” I shifted.

“It’s not really resistance. They don’t say anything. But I can tell. It’s like a blank look. A nod that says yes, but a feeling that says no.”

“What do you think you are going to do, to get a different result?” I pressed.

“I am going to give it more time. Maybe things will improve.” Victoria was an optimist.

“And, what if they don’t improve? First, how will you know whether they are improving? And what if they don’t improve? What will you do differently?”

“Once it gets off my plate, though, it’s really hard to get back to it. When I delegate something, I would like to forget about it,” Erica complained.

“That’s because you are only thinking about yourself, and even at that, you are still missing something,” I replied.

“But, if I’m not the one responsible for the task, anymore, I just lose focus on it.”

I nodded in agreement. “Just because you lose focus, doesn’t make it right. And you can change your focus.”

“I don’t know. It’s easy to say, hard to do.”

“So, even though the task is gone, how are you going to maintain visibility, so you don’t lose focus?” -TF

I don’t care how much you, as a manager, know. I don’t care how you, as a manager, feel.

I only care about what you, as a manager, can do.

The best (and only) judgment of performance is performance.

Education is all about teaching you things to know. Motivation is all about making you feel. But all I care about is, what you can do.

That’s why we started Working Leadership Online. This is a hands on program that helps you to implement managerial leadership practices in your own daily work life. Next week, our Working Leadership group turns their attention to Delegation. I don’t care how much you know about delegation. I don’t care how you feel about delegation. I only care that you can do.

You can read this blog and know something. You can read this blog and it may make you feel differently about something. But the blog is not designed to help you do.

And that’s why we started Working Leadership. I just put the finishing touches on the curriculum that starts Monday. It’s good stuff. You can sign up for the upcoming Delegation subject area or you can register for the next three (Delegation, Control Systems, and Managing Time) at a discount. Each subject area lasts three weeks. We currently have 16 managers actively participating in this program and we’d like to see you join in, too. Check it out. -TF

“I don’t understand. Delegation saves time,” Julio puzzled.

“Yes, but let’s change the leverage point,” I replied. “Instead of thinking about the benefits to you, as a manager, what are the benefits to the person you delegate to?”

Julio was thinking. He nodded. “Well, they will be able to take on more responsibility?”

“Okay, but how does that benefit the team member?”

“They may learn something new. Gain a new skill. Try something they have never tried before. It might lay the groundwork for a promotion.”

“And if they are successful at this new skill, how much time will that save you?” I asked.

Julio sat back. Chuckling. “If they really learn it, could save me a hundred hours.”

“And that’s the leverage I am talking about. You work for one hour, get a hundred hours of productivity.”
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Working Leadership Online
April 6 – Delegation Skills – Ultimate Leverage
Register today.

Apr 27 – Control Systems and Feedback Loops
May 18 – Managing Time – Managing Yourself
Jun 8 – Team Problem Solving – Power of Team