A traffic enforcer stopped a speeding car at the intersection of a busy location. The driver was a priest. Putting away his citation book, the cop said: “Father, I’ve to tell you there’s a Protestant cop at the next light.
In the same vein, I would often caution people managers in my popular seminar on “Superior Supervision” to reflect on their management style to heed W. Edwards Deming’s (1900-1993) admonition that “80% of all problems can be blamed to Management, and only 20% can be traced to the Workers.” This is usually strengthened by Peter Drucker’s (1909-2005) claim that “what we know in management is usually on how to make the work of people difficult” or words to that effect. It’s easy to understand Deming and Drucker if we know PLOC (planning, leading, organizing, controlling) under Management 101.
Fortunately, I lot of these managers listened to my advice. They were able to change their management style after learning more about themselves and the situation where they’re in. But does self-knowledge generally improve managerial behavior? You only have to reflect on the morale of the workers to find out. One barometer is the attrition rate.
