The fact that I grew from a simple assistant to an executive position, and in this process my colleagues did not change much, so they had to adapt to the change, brought some funny and thought-provoking cases.
Once I was sitting in the office, with the door open as usual, and I was working hard on some kind of analysis, when my colleague Tibi, the group leader of one of the production areas, stopped at the door. He worked at the plant for a thousand years and understood well what he was doing, so it was always worth listening to him, but at the same time I also needed to pay attention to the fact that he was also loud and talkative, he also functioned as a kind of opinion leader.
So, Tibi stopped, filled the door frame, and visibly nervously started to complain that even the notebooks aren't good anymore, we're buying all the crap, because the pages are NOT PERFORATED. And when you rip them out, the edges are ugly…
My head was full of numbers, to use a local term, I didn't get a spark, I looked at him blankly. Several things crossed my mind:
- Is it the same with my fellow Czech factory manager, whose organization I have always seen as well-organized and who was highly respected by his colleagues, so they also appear at his door with such questions?
- There is no management book that says I should deal with this level of problem...
- How could this task be directed in the right direction, i.e. towards the desk of my colleague who deals with it?
- But all this in such a way that the colleague's sense of self is not undermined and he does not leave with the feeling that his problem is not important and he himself is not important...
- I wonder what could have upset him so much that he stopped at my door for such a stupid reason? What is it really about?
In such cases, there is no better solution than standing up and have a chat. To listen, to care, to understand, because sometimes that is all that is needed. In the meantime, you can also hear what thoughts are in the head of the PLANT, whether there is a need to communicate or intervene in any ways.
At the same time, patiently and kindly tell him not to put the colleague in such a situation, that he will come to me right away, since she can solve the task perfectly, she doesn't need me. By the way, she is also kinder than I am ????
In my opinion, management tasks are not limited to creating great things in the "hard" areas and having good numbers, if we don't do the same on the "soft" side, we don't care about those who belong to us, it won't be a good workplace that we lead. And if it is not good to work there, sooner or later hard results cannot be achieved either.
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