Getting to the Bottom

  So, I just came back from being the Course Director for a Boy Scouts of America National Youth Leadership Training camp. It was a great experience. The program is essentially like a BSA Woodbadge course for youth. For those who aren't familiar with Scouting and the culture of leadership in the program, Woodbadge is a week-long advanced leadership training for adult leaders. In my military service, I attended a number of leadership schools - Airman Leadership School, NCO Preparatory Academy, NCO Academy, as well as several professional leadership programs in the civilian word. On top of that, I've made it a self study goal and have ready countless books on leadership (including some very interesting themed ones, such as "Make It So: Leadership Lessons from Star Trek TNG" and "Leadership Secrets of the Rogue Warrior"). Of all of that, I have to be honest and say that Woodbadge was the course that had the biggest impact. Not that any of it was really new, but the environment, the experiential training aspect, and the reflections made a huge difference. Well, NYLT is very similar and geared to youth. It is taught almost exclusively by other youth who have previously taken the course. We discussed communication, vision, team development, ethics, servant leadership, and a number of other topics. All with opportunities to experience them at some level.

  Well, after coming back, I've had the opportunity to witness an event that reminded me how difficult these principles can be in everyday life. One of the important principles of leadership is to keep situational awareness - to understand what is really going on. Too often, it's much easier to just view the surface and react. Often, that puts good employees in the crosshairs and often lets poor employees, who may be better at dodging the situation, continue on. This is often a source of employee disengagement which either leads to poor performance or high employee turnover. The manager is the person with the responsibility to understand and react appropriately. Let's look at the situation.

  The event involves an employee who is a baker at a very popular, and thus, a very busy restaurant. The employee woke up in the morning not feeling great after a poor night's sleep. The employee goes to work to find the person working the station the previous night before has not properly closed and cleaned the station, and food that should have been prepared for the next morning hadn't been prepared. This puts the employee under discussion behind about an hour or so of work in the morning. This takes place on a Friday - a very busy day in any case. The restaurant runs two bakers on a typical Friday - a morning and an evening baker for a good 16 hours of work. The employee works through the shift and forgoes any breaks or lunch due to how busy the restaurant is. It turns out on this day, the second shift baker calls in and is unable to come to work for whatever reason. The employee in question's shift was over and there was no end in sight. She has now been going for 10 hours straight baking bread, brownies, etc handling large pans of dough in and out of the ovens. It's pretty difficult work. At this point, she is pretty exhausted - her hands are shaking a bit, and she's dragging. She tells the assistant manager who is in charge that she really can't keep going. The assistant manager was unhappy and told her she could go home. When she reports to work the next day, she is told she has a meeting with the owner and is fired for leaving work on Friday.

  On the surface, it's easy to look at the employee and criticize for her lack of motivation. But if you analyze the situation, she is the one employee who fulfilled her responsibility and more. Let's go through the cast of characters.

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•   Employee in question - She worked her shift and beyond, while making up for the previous night's gaps. She asked to leave and was released. It could be argued she didn't show motivation by not staying, but in actuality, she wasn't asked to (it seems there was just an expectation to keep working). Of course, the employee did notify the Assistant Manager of her physical condition. In a busy restaurant, I'd certainly question the wisdom of keeping an exhausted employee working just from a safety standpoint. A major slip of a knife or burn would cost the restaurant a lot more.
•   Previous night employee - Didn't complete their work and left it for others to cover. 
•   Evening shift employee - Didn't fulfill their responsibility and left the restaurant out of luck. It may have been a legitimate illness or a "Friday Night Cold," but in any case didn't do the job.
•   Assistant Manager - Didn't have any plans to cover for sick employee and didn't get another employee to come in to work (we don't know if he tried and none were available or not). In any case, the number of trained bakers is not sufficient for the workload or contingencies. He also made no indication on what the plan for the evening was with the employee's shift ending a couple hours before and ultimately released the employee. The management is responsible for maintaining the staff schedule and planning the workload. In this task,the management failed to do so effectively.
•   Other bakers - We don't know if any were contacted, but if any of the bakers who were not working were called in and declined to, then they have failed their responsibility, but have shown no more motivation than the employee in question.

  The result was the Assistant Manager notifies the Owner and the one person who fulfilled her responsibilities is fired. The owner and manager react out of frustration and rather than explore the problem so it doesn't happen again, blame the employee and ignore it until it happens again. They leave the employee holding the bag for their own shortcomings. Of course, other employees see this, and this becomes part of how they see the organization - leading to hiding problems, or covering them up.