5 ways to wind me up

 Around 10 years ago I took up my first proper line manager role.  I remember well the fear,trepidation, the excitement and the challenge.  The team were a pretty awful team if I’m honest.  Demoralised, resistant to change, bitchy and out to massacre the young pup that I was then. 

We had some ups and downs over the 18 months that I worked with them and by the end of the time most of them had left the team if not the business as a whole.  I’m sure I made a whole load of mistakes, I certainly learned a lot about myself.  To their credit, those that stayed in the company were always polite and civil to me throughout our time together.

Ten years later, am I a better manager?  I think so.  Am I perfect?  Not by a long way (and no being in HR doesn’t mean that I have to be!)  But I do think I am more aware of my strengths and weaknesses than before and also particularly aware of my low tolerance zones:

1)  If you don’t know something, you don’t know.  And that is ok.  But for the love of God, do not bullshit me.  My bullshit detector is top class.  I am more cynical and sceptical than anyone you have ever met.  If I get even the smallest sniff of crap I will question you to within an inch of your life.  Just fess up at the start.

2)  Don’t take the piss out of me.  I’m a generous guy.  You need your boiler fixed – sure work at home.  You need to see the kids play, then go.  You feeling a bit under the weather, be off with you.  But when you’re here you work and you work hard.  There is no such thing as a half measure.  “I was just coming to that next” is not a good response.

3)  Never question my memory.  Whilst I can’t remember what I watched last night on TV or what I had for breakfast, I can remember the conversation that we had three months ago about the potential reorganisation in Sales and who was going to do what and come back to whom.  It’s an illness, what can I say.  Check the notes, you’ll find I’m right.

4)  “It can’t be done” and “it won’t work” are phrases that should be confined to satan’s cess pit for eternity.  “I can’t find a solution” now that just might make the grade.  Everything (within reason!) can be achieved; it’s just a question of working out how, when, and with whom.  Think about it……get creative.

5)  We do not wash our dirty laundry in public and we stay united as a team.  As a rule we do not fuck up.  But if……if someone gets something wrong, we sort it out, we make it good, we deal with it.  Then we kick arse behind closed doors and out of earshot when we have succeeded and it has all gone quiet.  Nobody need ever know…..