What shall we do with you?

“During the past Holiday Season Mrs. Curmudgeon entertained quite a bit.”

“You’ve told me about those events, Curmudge. Apparently your role was door-opener, drink-mixer, sandwich-cooker, cleaner-upper, and all-around lackey.”

“That’s right, Jaded Julie. Most of the guests were musicians; and when they gathered around the grand piano in the living room to sing, I chatted with the non-singing spouses in the family room. Sometimes we talked about what we do for a living, or in my case, as a volunteer.”

“Presumably you described your writing about health care and occasionally, management.”

“One woman, who doesn’t work in health care, was distraught over her supervisor’s seemingly exasperated question, ‘Penny (not her real name), what are we going to do with you?’”

“Wow, Curmudge! In these days of big organizational changes, that sounds ominous, and in any case it’s an outrageous thing for a supervisor to say. When you hear a question like that, you almost expect to see Alice in Wonderland’s Red Queen run into the room shouting, ‘Off with her head.’”

“It’s almost that bad, Julie. One would certainly anticipate being fired later if not sooner. A young employee would conclude that her future lies elsewhere, and an employee over 50 would experience gross insecurity.”

“How did you feel, Curmudge, when you heard Penny’s story?”

“I was appalled. Irrespective of the supervisor’s intent, she shouldn’t have spoken that way. It reflected a lack of sensitivity as well as poor training of middle managers by her employer. We have the Affinity Learning Center. Don’t other major employers have something comparable? If they don’t, a middle manager should train herself. There are easily a hundred books on management in Barnes & Noble and the Public Library. I’ll bet that not one of them advises a manager to brow-beat her employees.”

“I fully expect that you, Old Manager-from-Long-Ago, have some advice for the offending supervisor.”

“I certainly do, but it’s from my reading, not from my experience. According to Marshall Goldsmith (1), ‘Good manners is good management.’ What distinguishes an advancing manager from one who has hit a plateau has nothing to do with experience and training and everything to do with behavior.”

“I’m not sure that I agree totally, Curmudge, but poor behavior is certainly a death knell for advancement.”

“Another characteristic of a successful manager is ‘mindfulness.’ You must always be aware of who you are, what you are doing, and to whom you are speaking. And this doesn’t apply only to managers. At Walt Disney World, each member of the ‘cast’ (all employees) is expected to remain ‘in character’ except for emergencies.”

“We once talked about one’s personal brand, the way a person acts consistently. Mindfulness sounds like an essential component of a positive personal brand.”

“That’s right, Julie. If one’s personal brand is an old grouch, his career will be limited to either a manure shoveler or a blog writer.”

Affinity’s Kaizen Curmudgeon

(1) Goldsmith, Marshall. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. (2007, available from Amazon)