“Don’t come to me with a problem if you don’t have the solution!” This is a big bunch of baloney. Not even the most talented staffer will be able to live up to this—at least, not all the time. Besides, a staffer who has all the answers ought to be a manager, right?

    Just imagine you sell cars for a living and one of the models you are trying to sell always fails. So you go to your manager to talk about this dilemma. Would your manager expect you to know how to engineer a better model? You might have a few thoughts to share—but a complete overhaul?

    Ever heard the claim, “My company doesn’t have any problems”? Of course there are problems—even in the best companies! Why doesn’t this manager know that there are any? Isn’t he in control? A trust company in Germany laid off all its German/English translators; according to their management, “everyone learns English in school.” Besides, there were enough bilingual people in the office. A few months later the company had to rehire the translators. What happened? The trust lost the bid for a huge project because of errors in the contract. A typical blunder was the phrase “river diagram” instead of “flow chart diagram.” Do you think this is a sign of a management in control?

Are you in control?

Can you gain and keep control?

Do you know some of the problems?

Do you know how to address the problems?

Are you addressing them?

Tags: baloney blunder cars dilemma flow chart diagram german english translators germany huge project laid back models phrase staffer trust company