Page 45 - The Voice of Authority

but never proved, the point is this: If you so much as sneeze
in your department, sooner or later it affects somebody
else—their pocketbook, paperwork, process, or priorities.
Imagine this: You’re an engineering manager working
in Orlando and have been given orders to fly to New York
City to head up a project team to build a sky bridge in the
heart of Manhattan. You get halfway there and your cell
phone rings, and your boss tells you to forget the sky bridge
and head for San Diego. You’ve been assigned a new proj-
ect—to construct new habitats for more than 20 percent
of the animals in the San Diego Zoo.
You reschedule your flight and head for San Diego, leav-
ing a five-minute broadcast voice mail for your staff to let
them know of the change in mission, timelines, supplies
needed, and staff assignments. Would you be concerned
about what you might find waiting for you in San Diego to
support the new project? How do you think the sudden
change in mission might affect others’ priorities, sched-
ules, shipments, support activities for the week?
Supervisors do the equivalent of the bridge-to-zoo
switch frequently, without letting staff or other depart-
ments know what’s happening, why it’s happening, or how
it’ll affect them.
Yet when leaders turn on a dime and communicate the
details to all involved, employees will engage.

Too Busy to Make Things Easier

You’ve heard people say they’re too busy to go to a time
management class to get their life under control. So they
remain disorganized and frantic. Similarly, some people
claim they’re too busy to communicate. Consequently,
they waste time in cleaning up the mess of miscommuni-
cation—settling conflicts, clarifying misunderstood mis-

Is It Complete? 33