We just want to be sure that we have put our best foot forward under all circumstances. But occassionally there is a fumble! Distractions, competing priorities, missed communications, absences, turnover in teams, missed planes, wrong dates, illness - any number of unforseen factors can cause the proverbial best foot not to be put forward.
I tell you, I did not like that feeling.
Fumbles, it occurs to me don't feel good because these are items under your control; whereas if a thing not in your control goes bad, you can understand.
But on the other hand, 100% performance 100% of the time is quite demanding. Also, I felt myself turning my performance up a notch the next day - an interesting psychological response.
Finally, never once did I or do I blame the two absent team members.
4 comments:
You have brought in a wonderful topic. Some who is in top management has to rely
on the home work and input of his sub-ordinates. It can go wrong at times, due
to sickness or unexpected absence of key person. The possible solution is
sharing and archiving data with more than one person, asking them to cc us on
all communications (as SOS re-construction later.) All said and done, easy to
preach but difficult to practice. I am enclosing another article of relevance,
here.
An Inspirational Story with Wisdom
Who Packed Your Parachute
by Author Unkown
Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really
important. We may fail to say hello, please, thank you, congratulate someone on
something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do
something nice for no reason.
Charles Plumb, a US Naval Academy graduate, was a jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75
combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb
ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a
communist prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned
from that experience.
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another
table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the
aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"
"How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb. "I packed your parachute,"
the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man grabbed his
hand and said, "I guess it worked!"
Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here
today."
Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb kept wondering
what the man might have looked like in a Navy uniform. He wondered how many
times he might have seen him and not even said good morning, how are you or
anything, because you see, he was a fighter pilot and the man was just a sailor.
Plumb thought of the many hours that sailor had spent in the bowels of the ship,
carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in
his hands each time the fate of someone he did not know.
Now Plumb asks his audience, "Who is packing your parachute?" Everyone has
someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. Plumb also
points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down.
As you go through your week, month, and even New Year, recognize the people who
have packed your parachute and enabled you to get where you are today!
My immediate reaction is when was the last time I fumbled? Seemingly all the time in my job. It starts with emails. A funny take on fumble. Hope you will forgive me!
Phone rings. The fumbler picks up.
Fumbler: Yes Boss. Err¦ No, no, that was not the email I intended to send, I had not finished…you know I think I pressed CTRL , ENT inadvertently
Grumbler: but how dare you address me Dead John?
Fumbler: Did I? Oh my God! Must have been a typo. I sure meant Dear John(who the hell designed D and R next to each other on the key board?)
Grumbler: Hey, if you have got a problem with me, tell me. We can deal with it. Why would you tell Jack at the coffee machine the other day that I MADE A POOR POINT?
Fumbler: Oh no Look John, actually I was praising your power point.
Grumbler: You need to come up with something more imaginative boy. After all did you not give the same explanation when I came to know of your comment about my new recruit Jim is a poor fit? You tried to convince me you actually meant profit! On the other hand, the boy you recently hired, he is such a mess.
Fumbler: You mean Jake? You know he came up with such a good proposal last week for the client.
Grumbler: Yes, the same guy who was wearing different socks on either legs for the meeting. Wish he at least had the sense not to cross his legs awkwardly
Thankfully some of the above did not happen to me! But the one below did.
It was almost sixteen years ago when I had just started with this company. I used to argue a lot with my then boss who was not only strict about profit margins in contracts, but was a stickler to consistency in formats and using standard templates. While he was for uniformity and I used to harp on creativity. I was negotiating a small deal (that mattered a lot to me then) and when the client wanted the final pricing sent, I did it in a hurry, printed out and faxed. After all, I had gone over this document several times previously, I had to just retrieve the old file make a few changes, apply some discounts and send it.
And in came promptly the order from the client return fax.
But I was not exactly celebrating. Post-facto I had realized that due to a poor maneuver on Lotus 123 (remember the DOS days!) the total pricing that came out at the bottom actually meant that we would be doing a negative margin – a loss in this business! But the client had already faxed the order! I, obviously distressed, took the paper to my boss. My first worry was how we were going to say NO to the client. Then of course I was wondering how grave this was going to be for me.
But client is the first big worry, firstly loss of business, even worse loss of credibility. Is there any way I could get away with this?
In my boss' chamber, holding back the paper I was being honest about how this happened. I was stuttering, “You know I was under pressure, the pricing needed a re-composition, trying to delete some rows but ended up shifting cells, etc etc.
He did not ask me a single question. He grabbed the paper from me and just wrote go ahead and smiled.
His gesture taught me something! A lot in fact.
You have brought in a wonderful topic. Some who is in top management has to rely on the home work and input of his sub-ordinates. It can go wrong at times, due to sickness or unexpected absence of key person.
The possible solution is sharing and archiving data with more than one person, asking them to cc us on all communications (as SOS re-construction later.) All said and done, easy to preach but difficult to practice. I am enclosing another article of relevance, here.
It does happen many a times, in a hurry to help our bank customers in finishing their jobs fast we some times commit trivial mistakes and the customer understands us and becomes more accommodating, because they know our efficency and pressure but some times we will be at the receiving end even for the customer mistakes- and our moto is customer is the king.
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