As a well-meaning person, you can lose an intelligent person or a little about delegation.

The manager’s problem, as we know, is not that people are mortal, but that they are suddenly mortal. If all the layoffs, motivations and demotivations could have been foreseen and laid the plan, then managers would feel very comfortable.

Life, however, is richer, and there is a small story on this subject that happened 10 years ago, when the main character of the story, colleague slavapankratov, had not only not written his “Black book of the manager” , but had not even thought about business coaching, but modestly worked as the head of the testing team in an actively growing outsourcing company of the glorious city of Kiev.

(Next will be from the first person.)

Our team just came new tester Lesch. I immediately liked Lyosha, firstly because I was as calm as a tank, well, I was even more than that, which is clearly a plus when communicating with developers.
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And here we went daily morning planners. Since my boys have been working for a long time, all autonomous nuclear-powered icebreakers, then I just give them each a direction: “you go there, you go there. you are here. ”I turn to Lesha:

- Lesh, so look how we have everything here. Earth is the third planet from the Sun ...

And then I begin to tell in detail what we have done, what tools, where to look, etc.

I look, he frowns something. And this is, in general, an unpleasant picture - I remind you, it is bigger than me. Well, I think, maybe, the mood is not very. In short, he finished everything, set the task. Lesha swam away to the workplace.

I sit, I think: give him another letter to duplicate, so that the person will not miss anything. I wrote a letter, pages 3 - sent. In response - silence.

I knock on ICQ (there wasn’t Skype yet):

- Lesh, you took the task?
- Well.
- Can you tell me something about this?
- What for?
- Well, what do you agree with the assessment of time, so that I was aware of this.
- In terms of?

I understand that somewhere we understand something differently. I come to Lesha. I say:

- Lesh, when I set the task, I put the deadline for its execution in the same place.
- Well.
“Can you disagree with him?”
- Of course.
- Will you start the task?
- Of course.
- Wait, wait. So I will give you the task to paint this wall green in an hour. Dame Maaaa little brush and a jar of gouache.
- Well.
- Will you start doing?
- Of course.
- So I'll come later, I'll swear that the task is not done
- (joyfully - apparently, everything came together) Well!

In short, it turned out. Lesha used to work in a company created by the former military. Obviously, the colleagues did not have the concept of “I agree with the assessment of the task” or “I do not agree with the assessment of the problem”. An order is an order.

Okay, here we figured out Lesha, I gained another useful knowledge about the fact that when you hire an employee, behind him are standing like shadows of forgotten ancestors: colleagues, managers, projects, companies, parents. And all these people taught him something and formed some reactions in him.

It takes a month. The whole company and their families went to the Kiev Sea (for non Kievans: this is a reservoir, but very large). We note something fateful.

My spouse somehow cleverly got acquainted with all. Well, in particular, with Leshina wife. Half an hour fit:

- Hey, boss, come here. Lesha was going to quit.
- What? !!! (As it is, it seems that everything was just decided, we are working ...)
- Take a beer, go decide.

I went to Lesha with beer:

- Lech, why are you going to leave?
- Well yes.
- And what?
- [pause] Why are you with me like a down boy ?!
- In terms of?..
- Well, on the planning meetings, you and the men are fine: you go there, you go there, and for me, as a down boy, you chew on all tasks for half an hour. And this is before the boys ...
- So I am, because you are a new man, so that everything was clear.
- So it is fine, so you then also finish with a letter. I'm not stupid!
- ... (And I understand that from his point of view it could look like this.)

What conclusions can we draw from this story:

1. Women understand each other much faster than men.

2. (18+) Beer, of course, extends communication channels, which allows you to understand each other better. Sometimes, however, increases the level of aggression, but that's how lucky.

3. When starting work with a new person, it would be good to choose the correct level of delegation and explain to the person immediately why this level was chosen (“we have not worked with you before”).

4. When formulating a task, it would be good to speak the type and frequency of control and explain why you choose such a type and frequency as nominal (“the problem is critical”, “we have not done such tasks before”, ..).

(From myself, I note that paragraph 4 misses the overwhelming number of managers - especially when the type and frequency of control does not change due to a change of person, but because the task has changed.)

March 2 - more about the same topic on the PRO + SKILLS online conference

On March 2, as part of our online conference PRO + Skills, we are thinking of expanding this topic in detail in a small 2-hour report entitled “The Snowflake Man or 4 Major Delegation Errors”.

If you have the opportunity - come, we will be glad to see you. Conference fee (980 rubles for 4 days). With this money, you can buy half of the branded charging for the iPhone, or finally deal with the subject of delegation and three more useful skills, articles on which we will publish next week.

PS If the continuation of the story is interesting, then Lesch remained to work in a team. Then the ways of the main characters went their separate ways. Now Lesha is working as a large account manager in one of the largest outsourcers.