Waist deep! Neck deep! Soon even a
Tall man'll be over his head, we're
Waist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!
Pete Seeger
How do you handle mistakes?
The 1967 Pete Seeger song “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” tells the tale of a military unit that must ford a swampy river.
Over the objections of the unit’s sergeant, the commander insists they can make it.
Drowning ensues.Recently a friend told me about a situation she had had with her employer. I’ll keep it vague to protect the innocent (and, I suppose by extension, the guilty). My friend had a critical question about how to proceed with with a task. She has two managers, which is structurally a bad situation from the get-go. One is conscientious but overworked and beleaguered. The other is overbearing and unapproachable. Their areas are entirely separate from one another, but both equally supervise my friend.
It should be no surprise that the incident I will describe came under the bad boss’s jurisdiction. After all, if it occurred in the department of my friend’s good boss, there would be little for me to write about. My friend would ask her question, get an answer, and complete her task. Hardly noteworthy.
Except for the fact that in the dysfunctional environment where she works, a competent boss is actually extraordinary.
So, back to my friend’s dilemma. To recap. She has a vital question. Her good boss cannot help since it is not her area. So my friend must go to her bad boss for the answer. My friend could then anticipate that the bad boss will respond to her question one of three ways.
The bad manager could do as the good boss would, just answer the question and be done with it. That is the most helpful yet least likely scenario.
She could simply ignore the question, and — given the communication record of this bad boss — that is fairly likely.
Or, and this is the most likely with this particular boss, she could answer the question yet hold it against my friend that she did not know the answer herself.
Worse still, there is a real chance that the answer she gives my friend would be wrong, that my friend would then put this wrong information into practice, and that her bad boss would then blame her for not only not knowing the answer but also for screwing up the task. (Note that the bad boss has erased her culpability from this narrative.) This sequence has happened before, and yes this boss is really that bad.
By the way, the only other person who would know the answer to my friend’s dilemma is the CEO — you know — the one who presides over this whole dysfunctional mess of a company. Based on past behavior and despite her oft-touted open-door policy, she would certainly resent my friend for bothering her and be angry at my friend’s manager for not taking care of it herself. The bad manager then would blame my friend for going to the CEO (“over my head!”), which would initiate a downward spiral in their already sinking relationship. You know this movie.
My friend agonized over this problem for days. She lost sleep over it. Finally, she just went ahead and asked her bad boss what to do. Her bad boss — having just had her cloven hooves polished and painted crimson at the nail salon — was in a good mood and simply answered my friend’s question with no fallout. Happy ending?
But wait! There’s more!
In the meantime, because she had been so focused on this one problem, because she was so stressed, because she was so afraid to make a mistake with this particular task, because it had caused her to lose sleep, because she was so unsure, because, because, because…
My friend dropped the ball on two other entirely unrelated tasks under her bad boss’s purview.
Her bad boss was furious with her.
So, who is at fault?
A. My friend who made the mistakes
B. Her boss
C. The CEO
This one is easy. All three! Let’s break it down in reverse order.
First, the CEO. She is the one who has allowed this culture of recrimination and arbitrariness to flourish. Perhaps she even established it herself. Whatever the case, unless she just took her position last week (and she did not), she gets the blame for corporate dysfunction. Any boss who habitually lets blame run downhill is a fraud. She also takes a hit for her lack of approachability and general surliness.
Second, the bad manager. She is a hack, through and through. Her behavior shifts with her mood. She is unapproachable and unreasonable except when she isn’t, which makes her unpredictable. She is quick to blame others and slow to take responsibility. One day, the board will no doubt wake up to all these grotesque shortcomings in her character and duly promote her to CEO. She’s got the stuff!
Finally, my friend. She still works at that three-ring circus of a corporation. Shame on her!
This rendition by the way is a stripped-down version of the real scenario, which was far worse.
You Are Mistaken
The simple fact is that people will make mistakes. They do. I do. You do. Mistakes happen. Sometimes employees’ mistakes are chronic due to their own negligence or incompetence. But if that is the case, why would a boss tolerate such chronic negligence or incompetence? If an employee flat-out cannot or will not do the work despite the best efforts of leaders to lead them, then that employee should be encouraged to find work elsewhere.
Although you have heard management types at all levels whining and crying about it, totally or inherently indifferent or incapable employees are pretty rare. If the company is somehow rife with such incompetent employees, then the managers are probably hiring such employees. That too is on the bosses.
So let’s say you do hire willing and capable people, but they still turn out to suck. Why? And how do you set them on the right path? Well, these are questions of bossing and leadership. Here are two simple facts that will help. Write them down so you don’t forget.
Bosses make people do tasks.
Leaders inspire people to do what needs to be done because they want to.
See the difference? Leadership can be challenging to execute with consistency, but the effort will reap rewards. Leaders prevent problems. Bossing is much more straightforward and relatively effortless to implement, but it tends to create messes that morph into massive problems. The good news is that bosses get to blame others for their messes, so it’s all okay, right?
This is why I say leaders prevent mistakes while bosses cause mistakes. If all the administrators who oversee my friend were actually leaders (a rarity), my friend would have been less likely to fret, lose focus, and then make other mistakes. Because her one manager and the CEO were bosses and nothing more, though, she ended up screwing up.
By the way, you may have pretty much forgotten about my friend’s good manager. As difficult as her job is in such a horrible environment, she still makes time for her employees. My friend can go to her when she has questions without any negative repercussions. With her, my friend rarely makes mistakes, but when she does, they learn from and fix them together. That is how a leader acts.
For all their bellyaching about lousy employees and their mistakes, the truth is that bosses cause those mistakes. Even when they aren’t busy making the mistakes directly, they set in motion the events that result in those mistakes. Bosses create the conditions that create those bad employees. Bosses condone or even encourage dysfunctional cultures. Leaders, instead, learn from mistakes and solve them. Leaders consciously forge healthy cultures.
All this is to say that employees are rarely the true problem. Bosses are.
Where bosses prevail, employees fail. Leaders are the solution.
Do your people ask too many questions and make too many mistakes? How do you respond when they do?
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Where Bosses Prevail, Employees Fail