“There is no silver bullet that’s going to fix that. No, we are going to have to use a lot of lead bullets.”  ––Bill Turpin (quote source)

Although Bill Turpin said this in reference to technical problems at Netscape, I see managers at all levels and across industries spending time looking for silver bullets with which to “fix” their people.

There are two reasons that this is a major waste of time.

First, I can categorically state that there is no such thing as a silver bullet. No matter what you are trying to do there is no tool or methodology that can be guaranteed to work in every situation and under every circumstance.

Second, No manager, past or present, has ever fixed anyone. The best that any manager can do is identify the problem, present the information and offer support, but any change or ‘fixes’ must come from the individual.

Lead bullets, however, are how most problems are solved and behaviors changed.

By some measurements lead bullets are expensive, since they cost time and effort over a longer period, but they typically have the highest ROI of anything a manager does.

So, time spent searching for a silver bullet fix or time spent chipping away at the problem with lead bullets?

As always, it’s your choice.

Flickr image credit: mdanys

This entry was posted on Monday, November 14th, 2011 at 1:15 am and is filed under management, Personal Growth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Tags: choice, management approach, manager
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.