Replying to LO7903, If writes:
>It is very easy to sympathise with Martha and agree with Ben, but
>what we are actually seeing here are two sides of one coin and the
>tendency of any group to excommunicate someone who does not think/
>act/ conform. We can easily get to being not only right but righteous
>about making the others or other wrong which is a block to learning
>in either case.
If, yes -- on one level, my story is a variation of someone diverging
from the status quo. But the numbers are interesting, because it
wasn't me against many. One person took exception, and she wasn't
honest with our general manager about how she was harassing the people
in her division. Our general manager didn't dig deeply enough for the
whole story, and so my boss was able to hound four people out of her
division. The customers my group served, across 24 project groups
company wide, were by and large quite happy. I'd worked hard with them
to find out what services they wanted, and what they needed to be
successful, and our group evolved in those directions with their help.
We all had a lot of fun doing this.
One of our hallmarks was how freely we gave away our expertise and our
knowledge. Michael Erikson is absolutely right when he talks about
getting better the more you give away. We gave everything away, and we
had more work than we could handle (the best compliment of all). I
think that's what most frightened my boss. She truly believed that if
anyone found out what she knew she'd be useless, so she was a pain to
get anything, knowledge or decisions, out of. Then she was quite upset
that no one ever asked her anything, which started the cycle over
again. Placating her to the extent that was needed was beyond my
energies.
I've beat myself up way too much about what I could have done to
manage the one fly in the ointment better. While it's a relief to hear
the other survivors of this boss say they didn't figure how to
reassure her, either, maybe we didn't look hard enough. OTOH, my
company is very much the forties military model of life,and breaking
the chain of command is greatly frowned on, though I did confide to
one trusted senior manager what had happened after I'd decided to move
on. And my boss happened to be the head of the human resources
division, so that channel was useless.
In the end, I took pride in the work my group did, and am
philosophical about running into a person who was too frightened of
everything to act any differently than she did. But the waste nags me.
And so does my company's inability to deal with cancers like this
effectively. I was disappointed that the general manager and other
senior managers gave tacit approval to my boss's behavior. Didn't the
good rapport with our customers matter? Didn't our good work matter?
Didn't we matter? It certainly made me examine my company's public
policies, because actions were vastly different from the pretty words.
Michael Erikson's right again -- don't set yourself up to depend on
The Company for your worth as a person.
Thanks to you who commented about my post. Your thoughts gave me a lot
to think about, and helped me see the situation through different
eyes. That was valuable.
Martha
Martha Landerman I.S. Maryland
rti1mlm@roadnet.ups.com United Parcel
Service of America, Inc.
2311 York Road
Timonium, MD 21093
...the usual disclaimers... my words, not my company's...
**********************************************
Try yoga. As your body flexes, so does your mind.
**********************************************
--"Martha Landerman" <mlm@smtpgwy.roadnet.ups.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>