June 28; Listening And Soliciting Is Hard Work
MANAGEMENT BY THE BOOK:
365 Daily Bible Verse &
One-Minute Management Lessons For The Busy Faithful

Chapter Six: Correction; 28 June

We have much to say about this,

but it is hard to make it clear to you

because you no longer try to understand. 

Hebrews 5:11

Efficient Reward

The bar at the Racetrack was hopping. Beer and bohemian flowed. The crowd was mostly male who worked away from an office on the road; union guys who just completed their delivery routes and the like.

It was 2:15pm.

I’m with my buddy Tom (We had just come off a sales call. Maybe we would make another call. Maybe not.) I ask him, “Is it this crowded every day—so early?”

Tom finishes his beer. “Yep,” he says, “These guys finished their work in half a day; they’re done; they come here until it’s safe to go home at 5:00.”

“Safe?” I ask. Then he tells me the wives would get worried to hear about the men-folk finishing so early in the business day. Maybe there’s not enough work? And there certainly would be no relaxing beer just after lunch.

I ask, “So, they get their jobs done in half the time? — Is this the managers’ fault in poor planning?”

“No,” says Tom. “After a few months on the job the guys figured out how to do the work faster and come here when they’re done.” He smiles, “The cleverest guys get here the earliest…”

“You mean the laziest?” I scan the crowd. “They should be in management.”

I look at Tom, “Why don’t they tell the boss—they found better ways to do the job?”

“Nobody asked.”

I learned later that the men, even the union thugs, tried to tell their supervisors of the gains in efficiency: the men got the tasks done faster-better-cheaper.

Managements’ answer? They would double the work load. Easy solution.

But did the individual contributor get any pay raise or recognition – a reward or an award?

No. Not possible now. Not in the budget. Outside the contract. Not in your pay-grade…

No. The men only got more work.

Word gets around. The boys go back to the bar for another round.

The managers did not Plan; did not Organize; did not Lead and did not Control. They did not listen.

Sheridan M. Tatsuno, president of Neoconcepts Inc., says, “There is nothing wrong with American labor, but there is something seriously wrong with American management.”

“There are no bad soldiers, only bad generals,” attributed to Napoleon.

There are only bad bosses who don’t seem to care to listen. Hebrews 5:11, We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand.

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