A client had just completed managing a thousand person
global technology gathering and we were conducting the post-learning.
Before the event, her strongest team
had been the planners. Granular she called them. Material was
ordered and inventoried, prepackaged and pre-staged.
As the event started, the plan
blew up, and another team came to the front. I call it the maitre
d’ function, “How can I help?” and ‘Here’s what you can
do...” A dizzying flow of problems and requests, not relying on
planning or inventory to fix the problems.
In hindsight, the plan took care of
most of the transactions, the maitre d’s took over when the plan
was not enough.
The feedback was that the attendees had
a best ever five day party, the customer had a blowout success.
Our planning team had major complaints
about the maitre ‘d team ignoring their plan. They wanted to know,
what was appropriate punishment?
The maitre d’ team didn’t bother
coming to the meeting. Their job was done.
Later I complimented the client on
keeping a sunny disposition through the event and through an
emotional review meeting.
She said, “I learned a long time ago
not to be concerned about attaining perfection. I am very concerned
about maintaining excellence, and I did that when I was recruiting
the teams for the event. When things get tense, I remind myself that
now
is not the time to be
the leader.”
How do you make the most of whatever
you’ve got?
1 comment:
A reminder that it's the people you choose to do the job that matter, planning and fire-fighting notwithstanding. Sounds like this manager did an excellent job of fitting the right people to the right jobs.
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