MY OPERATIONS MANAGER JUST WALKED OUT ON ME

Steven Cesare, Ph.D.

An industrious business owner from Minnesota called me the other day to talk about the recent event when at the beginning of a normal business day, her Operations Manager told her he was resigning, effective immediately. That’s not a de-caffeinated latte; that’s the full double espresso to start the morning! Let’s review the event, the process, and the plan together.

The company is successful, stable, and sincere. Like many organizations in the snow belt, it consolidates most of its landscape functions into a seven-month season, May through November. A lot to do, in a very short timeframe, with minimal margin for error, underscored by explosive business activity in May and June.

The new Operations Manager was hired last November, possessing strong academic Horticulture credentials, a positive disposition, and capable management skills well documented on his resume. True to form, the owner developed a thorough, applied on-boarding program for the Operations Manager, lasting from November through February, to promote his success. Program content addressed business concepts, people issues, and administrative requirements, within the context of the abbreviated landscape season, supplemented by ongoing coaching sessions between the business owner and the Operations Manager.

Responsible for all 40 field employees, across multiple revenue streams, the well-paid Operations Manager expressed confidence going into the instantaneous, unsuspecting, flash point of the season as the company resumed commercial activity. Belied by his calm demeanor during the on-boarding program, it became patently apparent that he was not keeping pace when he actually had to manage the entire operation.

Some operations details were not being completed as expected, his interpersonal skills became “snarky,” and his self-awareness was rapt with denial as evidenced by the fact that he did not work extra hours to get ahead of the myriad issues starting to plague him and his team. Accordingly, he became visibly short-tempered, withdrawn, and defensive, characterized by his routine responses to constructive behavioral feedback by saying “You’re picking on me,” “You’re not going to listen to me anyway,” and “It’s not my fault!”

Then, fatefully, just the other day he came into the office, announced his immediate resignation, and walked out the door: completely immature, unethical, and unprofessional. Lame, childish, wimp. This is where most companies, driven by fast-paced business priorities, will reflexively engage in operational triage, and “turn the page,” quickly pivoting their focus to look instinctively forward to the next task at hand.

Nope.

Take a breath.

Instead of impulsively doing triage, first conduct a thorough autopsy. Of course, I know daily business operations must be maintained. We all know that! Can’t we multi-task to prevent reoccurrence? Are we capitalistic executives, or simply self-indulgent, neophyte Operations Managers? Seriously, tell me the definition of insanity again. Still want to “turn the page?” Just like the last time; just like the next time, right?

Consistent with her irrepressible humility, she reviewed the relevant factors, drivers, and circumstances that contributed to this bad hire. For example, the culture was too person-based, instead of systems-oriented, allocating disproportionate responsibility on one person thereby creating a single point of failure, instead of having team-based contingency procedures in place. The interview process focused more on managerial concepts than actual operational skills, lacking specificity about the interviewee’s demonstrable expertise solving anticipated and unforeseen problems. The on-boarding program was based on professional trust (i.e., believing the new manager’s stated claims of “I got it”, “I understand”, “What’s next?”) instead of evaluating the quality of his experiential responses to real-world pressure-packed situational scenarios. And the coaching process during the actual landscape season was judged to be ad-hoc, general, and conversational rather than pre-ordained on a structured weekly schedule, replete with explicit goal-directed Start-Stop-Keep action items, and delivered in a consequential not collaborative fashion.

To avoid insanity and making another bad hiring decision, don’t “turn the page” so quickly. Instead, review the Table of Contents, first.

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