Hi,
For years I HATED staff.
At peak I had 16 people working for me and I would drive to work angry and drive back home angry. Just in a boiling rage. Every single day.
Took me a while (years) to come to grips with the fact that it was ALL my fault.
I had some personality traits that were really not ideal for managing people:
Nothing annoyed me more than incompetence.
If a job wasn't done right I was very likely to do it myself instead of just giving feedback.
I would be extremely blunt and straightforward with people. Oftentimes a little TOO much. We had people cry in the office every single month.
One day my business partner sent me this picture:
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And said: "This is you when you're training someone on a new task"
It was not fun for anyone involved.
Anyway - I am happy to report that I fixed two of those three traits. My team is happy, I'm happy, I don't spend every day in a boiling rage. Everything is awesome.
The one thing I haven't been able to fix (nor do I want to fix it) is my lack of tolerance for incompetence. It's one of the few things that can really get me pissed off.
For example: I organise events regularly. Every 6 weeks or so.
We usually have about 40-50 people show up for some great networking. It's always a blast.
I mix it up a bit every time so I get in touch with different restaurants for a quote while planning.
They ALL have a staff member in charge of "events".
The average ticket is about $100 / head. Sometimes more. So this is a $4000 - $5000 sale. I would assume one sale would pay for a good chunk of the event manager's monthly salary.
And yet... it is impossible to get a timely response from these people.
IMMMMMMMPOOOOOOOSSIBLE.
It's truly insane.
If I send out 8 info requests I get a reply from 4. The other 4 just completely ignore it. Never even reach out at all.
This is their whole job. Managing events. Getting back to people that do events. And 50% of them can't even get back to you.
Of those 4 that do respond MAYBE 2 will include any useful info. The other 2 will just tell me what is NOT possible.
I'm not kidding, this is a thing. I remember asking about a dinner for 50 at 17:30 and they sent me back an email saying: "we don't have availability for 17:30".
So I call the restaurant and ask if they have availability maybe at a later or earlier time.
Turns out they could easily do 18:00.
Imagine this is your restaurant.
Imagine your event manager torpedoeing a sale because she can't be bothered to think in solutions at all.
And yes, we allllllllll know that would NEVER happen at our place.
Or would it?
Because trust me, dumb stuff goes on at your place. Just like it does at mine.
You need to shop at your own store.
Call your own office.
Go through your own ads.
Reply to your own emails.
Get on a call with your own people.
You're going to find gaps and holes and horrendous mistakes.
You're going to discover that not only your staff drops the ball... YOU drop the ball too.
It's life, we're human, not much you can do about it. But you can't afford to ignore it.
Trust... but cut the cards anyway. Doublecheck everything. Make it a point to go over all your processes regularly. It's the only way to make sure you're not dropping the ball in an epic way.
Talk soon,
Arno
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