Musings on Management

First Post: An Anecdote and Lesson

Ta-da! It looks like I have managed to create myself a blog as part of a Management 250 assignment. I chose this assignment over writing a memo on "The Strategy That Wouldn't Travel" because of the appealing ability a blog has to continuously exercise the mind. I am looking forward to using this blog to spend more time considering topics we cover in class, reflecting on ideas of classmates, and sharing observations from my own world and how they can relate to course material.

To all those who will be reading my blog, I say, "Welcome!" I encourage you to leave comments and questions. Let's start a dialogue!

To start off my blogging experience, I would like to offer an anecdote from my own life of an incident that occurred earlier this week.

Warning! The following is based upon actual events...

My fraternity candidate class (fall 2005) has begun making a tradition of going out to dinner before the initiation of a class every semester. We went to Maggiano's fall of last year before our initiation, and we went to the Cheesecake Factory in the spring of 2006 before the new candidate class was initiated. There had been talk since the beginning of the current semester that we should go out to eat dinner together as a class before the pledging ceremony for the fall 2006 class. This is where the drama begins...

All of us (the nine from fall 2005) were excited to go out to dinner. Plans were rather well set. However, one of the brothers who primarily coordinated this particular outing decided to make a last-minute change. He suggested to one of the new fall 2006 members (who presumably shared with his fellow new class members) that they (members of the fall 2006 class) were being taken out to dinner by the fall 2005 brothers. When the idea was floated (after the aforementioned communication) by the planning brother to his fellow fall 2005 class, a number of brothers disagreed with the idea for a number of reasons--mostly involving logistics, defeating the purpose of the outing, and the logic which was used to advocate the change in plans. At least eighteen separate e-mails in a period of as many hours flew back and forth between individuals over the debate. Needless to say, no one was happy. But to make a long story short--we agreed to disagree and just move on, going ahead with the large group dinner including the new fall 2006 class. Bonds of brotherhood certainly remained intact but tested.

Was the situation more trouble than it was worth? Probably. But more importantly, the story presents a teachable moment in the value of planning and communication.

We can look at the mistakes the brother coordinating the event made and relate them to a manager doing his or her job in the real world. Firstly, good management involves planning and communication. In our case, we (thought we) knew what the plan was: the fall 2005 class was to go out to dinner. Secondly, good management follows through on a plan agreed upon by others. During this execution, however, plans should not suddenly change, especially without the consent of those affected. That is where our planner missed the mark.

In the real world, would employees be happy with a manager whom they trust to carry out the decisions agreed upon by those (or at least the majority) involved, only to have their intentions betrayed? When the need for changes arise, those with investments should be on the same page; managers should have the trust of their employees to not make capricious changes, and they must communicate effectively.

Taking lessons from this experience, I will be sure when coordinating events and people that I do not renege on my word. Doing so only causes problems to arise and begins to form distrust and disappointment from those around the leader involved.