Yesterday, to my surprise my boss showed up at the job site. She tells me there is an issue that has come up and she wanted to resolve it asap. So she asked me to meet her and the woman running the engagement in an office. The issue was that I had supposedly missed a deadline. My boss starts out with asking the engagement manager how she communicated the deadline to me. I was asked not to speak until she had finished. Then I rebutted. This went on for about 1/2 hour and the whole time I am thinking, I am back in kindergarten and the teacher having us go through “he said, she said”. Finally I got fed up with the routine and decided to end it by being a bit rude and raising my voice and cutting the engagement manager off at half sentence until she could not take it anymore and began to cry.
If you were put in that situation, how would you have reacted?
The official decision by my boss is that communication breakdown caused us to miss the deadline.
I might have said something like, ‘Okay there seems to have been a communication breakdown. Forget about fault, let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again. In the future follow-up verbal communications, especially ones about deadlines and important stuff, in writing. Create a paper trail.’
By-the-way, what the heck is and engagement manager?
You should have tried to turn the conversation toward steps to be taken to ensure better communication. Blaming just puts people on the defense. I have up to nine people I manage at work and if something goes wrong it’s ultimately my fault for not having a better system.
I work for a financial consulting firm assisting clients in various matters such as general accounting, controllership, interim CFO, Sarbanes Oxley emplementation, public filings (e.g.,S-1, 10-Q, 10-K). The person from my firm that has been given the responsibility to be the leader of the assignment is given title “engagement manager”.
[This message has been edited by TyroneFly (edited 16 October 2005).]
Believe you me after the first 5 minutes I said going forward we need to be more proactive in the area of communication to help us get through these intense projects with tight deadlines. Also, that I will keep the manager updated twice daily as to my progress. The problem was the two women wanted to reinact the chain of events over and over making sure every stone was not left unturned so there would be no doubt as to who was at fault.
I don’t know that the problem was “Two Women”. I’ve seen the same thing happen with two men. No more does"The Buck Stops Here"…It doesn’t stop anywhere…everyone wants to blame someone else…not saying the blame isn’t/wasn’t deserved and if you had said, “I’ll take responsibility” some where there would be some smirking behind some ones back.
Over 20 years in the Navy and another
10 in the Merchant Marine, I worked for a
number of women, as well as a number of
incompetent individuals. They were never
the same. I never worked for a woman that
was not well qualified and committed to her
job, or one that did not reward competence.
I ran into plenty of guys that were better
at producing excuses than they were at
producing results. But they were very quick
to take credit for the work of others.
Thankfully, they didn’t last that long.
When the going gets tough, the tough get
going, and the rest start making excuses.
Warm regards, Jim
I have long ago learned to put everything in writing, and ask for direction in writing. Hard for someone to refute their own email. If I can’t make a deadline, I let the affected parties know as far in advance as possible, with the reasons why. And I have long ago learned that if you cannot do something, you need to say so up front instead of “Yeah, I can do that” or “I will try to get that done on time”. And if I have no idea what someone is talking about, I say so. If you always tell the truth, you never have to remember the story.
As for those of you who are too manly to have a female supervisor… Nah.
Having been a VP of Finance/Controller for years, I have pretty much tried to manage the way tyflier and others have mentioned. I think the real issue for me is the way my boss wanted to resolve the issue by placing the engagement manager and I at odds with one another. Nothing good every comes of two people trying to defend their position in such a situation.
Next week I start a new assignment and I will be the engagement manager and believe you me, there will be clear and constant communications.
Idea! Get a copy of the book, The One Minute Manager, for each of those people. It’s a fast read and well worth the time. Oh, and of course, you should read it too.
The problem, as I see it, is not a gender issue. It is blame placing. I sat in a meeting once, & after listening to the “physical pounding” of the person at fault being repeated time & again, I asked how much positive performance time we were losing by rehashing something already done, that we couldn’t change. Bottom line is, the mistake was made…address it, resolve the issue, & get back to business!
Mike
Once I had to tell our Plant Manager I’d Screwed Up and cost us 2 days on the delivery of a production tool and would only have 5 days to get it into production.
It could have been a 2 week delay if not for the suggestion of one of the “Team” members which would have cost us millions.
His reply was “OK” we’ll just have to work harder to make our deadline
On the Monday that the tool was supposed to be delivered he ask me if it had arrived and I know I had a very large grin on when I told him it came in on Saturday and was about to produce it’s first part. He grabbed my hand and said “Good Job”!! My reply was to have him call the owner of the tool shop and thank them for making the original deadline as they had earned it. My second request was for him to personally thank the man who had realy saved the day. That Diesetter and his family enjoyed a very nice dinner at a very good resturant in Cadillac, MI.
Take the Blame!
Work to resolve the issue!
And, do not take credit for what others did!