Which Way?
When my son was four, he was into geography. I was going on a trip to Las Vegas. The night before I left, we talked about my trip as I put him to bed.
“Mom,†he said so seriously. “There are mountains near Las Vegas.â€
“Yes, there are,†I answered back.
“Don’t look that way and walk that way,†he said, pointing left and looking right. I’m not sure whether he thought his mother was going to walk into a mountain or walk off a cliff. Either way it was sage advice. That’s why I remember it.
Angel’s Problem
A friend of mine sees the world with clear eyes much like my son. She told me about a woman who got fired. I was sorry for the woman’s trouble, but interested in the sequence of events.
Angel is an overachiever. She prides herself on doing the best. She was a manager at a small company that was bought by a huge corporation. She knows the business she’s in. Not many are as good at what Angel does. Angel is one of the best.
Unfortunately when Angel had her first meeting with the corporate executives, she didn’t take time to get to know them. She prepared as if it were any meeting. She acted as if they should get to know her. She presented in a way they found inappropriate for the setting. Strike one.
Angel lost credibility in the eyes of the big guns.
Angel knew the meeting went badly, and she didn’t like the feeling -– no she didn’t, not one bit. She highly valued her personal brand.
After the meeting, people tried to explain what happened. They tried gently to coach Angel toward gaining back what she’d lost. Angel wasn’t used to being coached and was preoccupied with her wounds. It was a new experience for her to lose. She couldn’t get over it. She couldn’t quit talking about it. The people who worked for her had to be told that corporate didn’t “get it,†that corporate “didn’t know the business.â€
Angel was feeling sorry for herself. She was spreading her feelings, generating bad morale. Strike Two.
Soon everything in Angel’s eyes became “them versus me.†They did reports one way. Angel did them differently. Rather than adjusting to make her reports match the corporate model, Angel just explained over and over how the corporate model was flawed. Angel was looking at herself not at the work.
Of course, with each little thing that she didn’t do to make things work, Angel left less appreciated and complained more. It became the vicious circle. She’d mess up. They’d tell her. She’d complain and mess up more.
People around her saw the signs of her departure. They tried to tell to her. She’d only complain again. The vicious circle got wider as people, who wanted to help, got tired of listening. Then Angel would complain about them. Until one day, it was just easier for everyone if Angel wasn’t there. Strike Three.
Angel looked in the wrong direction, and walked herself right out the door. She had violated a basic business rule.
When your boss or client points the way to go,
don’t bite the pointing finger, turn your head and take a look.
We may help write our job descriptions and our performance appraisals. But our company, boss, or clients have the last word about whether we are executing the tasks needed to get things done as they should be.
It’s nice to think, “My company needs me more than I need them.†It’s nice. It’s also not smart, and it’s never true. Companies need problem employees less than they need my all of my talents and yours combined. So if we can’t agree with our boss on our job description, we’ll be the ones who go, not them.
Watch where you’re looking.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.
It is sad, but you see this happen often. It can also happen between a business and its customers.
Even when the customer (or boss) is not always right, they should think they are (if possible).
Yes, unfortunately in business we are replaceable. But even if we do look at the way the boss is pointing, what if we decide that’s not the way we want to go? Should we stay and try to compromise, or should we say bye-bye?
It’s best to bend, cause if you dont, well those are the breaks
gp in montana
I guess Angel reacted too emotionally. She was successful and success is a bad teacher.
If we can put aside our emotions, our anger of not being understood, our self-regrets, we should ask ourselves which is the right direction to look at. If we think that our direction is right and our bosses’ is wrong I would say we should find another employer.
If you have the self-awareness of being a good professional and you see that your managers lead the company to a different direction you just should go your way but you have to do it professionally – with no emotions, no scandals, no bridges burned.
Hi James,
I guess I learned it a little late in life, but I so agree you . . . In most cases, nothing gets gained by making things about myself. Whether it’s a boss, a customer, or a friend, when a conflict arises, I should be looking to see how to keep us on the same team. When I do that I find a better answer and I like myself better in the end.
Hi Lauren Marie!
Your “stay or go” question is a great one. I faced it a few times myself. Unfortunately I can only for me. What I found was if the direction wasn’t who I was I should have left.
Hi GP,
If we don’t bend, we do break. Sometimes we break things like relationships at the same time. But sometimes, like Angel, we don’t see that we’re not being flexible. We think we’re fighting for a cause. We think we’re standing tall.
Hi Mike Ramm!
Welcome!
. . . and success is a bad teacher. I’ve never heard that said that way before, but I so agree. That’s a rule to live by.
Hey everyone 🙂
… and success is a bad teacher.” How profound. Isn’t that tantamount to saying “Nothing succeeds like failure.”?
And of course, the boss or the company is giving directions to an employee with a bird’s eye point-of-view — they might ask to do something in a particular way, because only they know how it affects the other areas of operations/businesses of the organization.
The creative and hard working employee may probably have ideas ‘how to do it better in a different way’, but certainly he or she will not know WHY the top guns wanted it done ‘this way.’
In which case, it’s smarter to follow the directions given and not having to keep battling.
The perils of becoming too invested in one’s job through emotions and ego.
At an old employer, after yet another reorg of Directors and the addition of a new VP, there was much rebelling at the office. My new Director was a long-time co-worker. His boss, the new VP, was new to us. When the Director pointed, I didn’t like where he was pointing…because he was pointing to the old ways. (He was WAY TOO invested in things.) He was eventually let go, because his attachment to the old got in the way of business.
When the VP pointed, I loved where he was pointing; he was creative, innovative, highly intelligent, forward-thinking. As an employee, it was difficult to be caught between these two (I reported to both of them because of the projects I worked on).
Moral to the story: Sometimes the new people are pointing to something better. Sometimes, they’re pointing to what you’ve been wanting, deep down, all along.
Yes, Zakman,
It’s true, we often don’t know all of the information about why folks ask us to do things, Peoples may not have time or the ability to communicate it all. When in doubt, at the very least, try what folks ask first.
Hi Whitney!
We’re likely to overlook our own biases as well . . . if we’re resistant to change might be something we don’t know about ourselves.
Liz, what do you mean by she needed to get to know them? If the company she worked for had just been acquired, how could she have “gotten” to know them? This would have been the first time she met with them right? Her first meeting with them and her first opportunity to present “her material” and who she is.
So help me understand what you mean by she didn’t take time to get to know them when she wouldn’t have had the opportunity ever.
Let me clarify, nor would the executives have given her the opportunity to get to know them. First presentation. Company had just been acquired. This is her time to sing and dance before the big guns…show off her stuff.
They want her to “perform” and see what she’s made of…
Hi Ev,
Having made that mistake . . . here’s what I meant. Rather than thinking that they needed to come in and learn the company, she needed to take a posture that learning about them was also important.
She made it about herself. Whenever we make things about outselves, inevitably they turn out wrong. That’s what I meant. 🙂