Ducks in a Row: They Are Not You
by Miki Saxon
Most of us crave acknowledgement when we do something well, I know I do.
Decades ago when I worked as a recruiter for MRI in San Francisco my boss, “Ray,” wasn’t big on that.
It’s not that he wouldn’t do it, he just never thought about it.
Acknowledgement wasn’t something Ray needed, so he was blind to its effect on others.
When he did give the kind of heady feedback that makes people hungry for more, you could see that he didn’t understand it.
Worse, more often than not, it came in response to what he was told — you literally had to walk into his office and say you closed the deal or got a new client to have it happen.
But praise caught by fishing or out-and-out asking is not worth a whole lot when it comes to motivation.
Nor did he understand how to build a strong team; the kind that could put an ‘Office of the Year’ award on the wall.
I still remember his effort to create the same esprit de corps as “Jeff,” another MRI manager and good friend of his enjoyed.
The effort failed, probably because Ray considered Jeff’s approach rah-rah stuff — the kind of stuff he was known to disparage.
Ray’s problem was similar to many managers I’ve worked with over the years, i.e., he assumed others wanted to be managed in the same way he liked to be managed.
When Ray did try doing it differently it felt like a con.
Which it was, because he didn’t really believe in what he was doing.
Image credit: Jim Hammer
