A Management lesson from the bible
One of the most common and pervasive staffing problems in funeral service is the man or woman who undermines almost every current and future issue management tries to address. They are the “Mayor of the Prep Room”. No matter what initiative you attempt, they quietly work behind the scenes to undo it. Sometimes they employ a subtle mechanism I call being “cooperatively uncooperative”. This means giving the appearance of being on board but quietly “forgetting” to do what they have promised. Worse they are absolute geniuses in providing what seem reasonable excuses why exceptions must be made. As “Mayor of the Prep Room” every attempt to communicate to staff is answered by a meeting after the meeting where they hold forth on “what we are really going to do.” The worst of them are blatant about simply ignoring expectations and just doing things the way they want rather than the way the are asked to do them. Effectively daring management to “Make Me.”
An example is worthwhile. Recently the more progressive funeral homes have implemented monthly, weekly and even daily staff meetings. Attendance is mandatory. Yet every owner that has been successful in establishing regular meetings has shared with me that it meant they had to chase down and face down at least one staff member repeatedly to make them attend. Many owners and managers simply gave up trying and either exempted them or stopped having meetings. This obviously caused other employees to lose heart and wonder (sometimes openly) who was really running the business. Formal power said the owner –but informal power didn’t agree.
Why do owners and managers allow this behavior? They say that it’s because they believe the person is too valuable to lose. They have convinced themselves that they would lose 10, 20 or 30 calls. And maybe they would. But over time the lack of progress in responding to the many challenges we face and the loss of employee morale (not to mention the loss of owner morale) cost much much more than the loss of those calls. I call these trouble makers “ten call men” because the owners live in daily fear they control that many calls.
I don’t like “ten call men” because they arrogantly wield informal power and prevent opportunity without assuming any risk. They play owners and managers like puppets.
Jim Collins, in his “must-read” book, “Good To Great” makes this observation about them:
“We have a wrong person on the bus and we know it. Yet we wait, we delay, we try alternatives, we give a third and fourth chance…we build little systems to compensate for shortcomings…We find our energy diverted…that one person siphons energy away from developing and working with the right people.
Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to the right people…
The reason we wait too long often has less to do with concern for that person than our own convenience…Meanwhile all the other people are still wondering: ‘when are you going to do something about this?'”
It is not unusual in my consulting practice to find inspiration in The Bible. On more than one occasion a verse from Proverbs has enabled clients to take long delayed but desperately needed action:
“Cast out the scorner and contention will go out; yea strife and reproach shall cease” Proverbs 22:10
Alan,
I have faced this many times. For those who have a genuine following in the community, we manage this with funded 36 month rolling covenants not to compete. Most importantly, our people know we will not put up with this kind of behavior. We don’t hesitate to correct this and will fire someone who thinks he/she is special or immune from the standards we expect of others. It is corrosive to the company’s culture that makes exceptions for those who have a following. I have also learned that these people tend to have a much smaller following than they think.
Regards,
John
Oh sage wise one. You speak the truth. Alan I’ve heard you talk on this before and it needs to be repeated to every funeral home owner at least once a year. I wish more employees would read it so they might see themselves or their co-workers in a different light. I you ever need stories of things that have been tried and failed give me a call. I could fill a couple chapters. I take responsibility for not leading as well as I should have but I also take a little comfort in knowing that I’m not alone in my challenges. What I would love to do is get some of those “Mayors” in a room 5 years after they completely trashed a great change initiative and ask them why they did what they did and what they were so afraid of. I had a director that blew up in a meeting, forced me to fire him in front of everybody all because he said were we turning too “Corporate”. Now he works for SCI. I wonder what he thinks now?
Dale
Every morning we have a staff meeting at 0800hrs. If you are running a few minutes late, you better call to let us know. We review the day, assign responsibilities and usually discuss a situation where things went really well…or really bad. It equates to a 5-minute continuing education class. When we have part time staff coming in for a visitation or a funeral service, we have a meeting of all who are working the service, assigning responsibilities, discussing special concerns and making sure we are all on the same page. We have a plethora of churches, some of which are small and only have one or two deaths a year. We make sure we all know what is expected by the clergy. It makes us look smart.
As far as staff, no one is perfect…especially me. We try to capitalize on strengths and to back up weaknesses.
[…] and I would probably fire the “Ten Call Tyrant” on the spot…just to save time. He’ll leave […]