Have More Than 2 Modes of Operation

One trait displayed by some of the most successful managers I’ve worked with over the years is that they have more than 2 modes of operation -- they have a variety of moods, demeanors, and feelings. Some of the worst managers I’ve worked with, on the other hand, have had 2 modes of operation (or only one).

Let me explain with a story that happened several years ago...

I had been working as a supervisor on the factory floor for a number of months, in one of the worst areas in the plant. One night, production had ground to a halt and everyone was upset. The details aren’t important. What’s important is that all of my employees were gathered around me, most of them yelling. The Union Committeeman, the Alternate Committeeman, and two Shop Committeemen were also there, most of them yelling as well.

After a few minutes of trying to get people calmed down and back on the job, I finally lost it. And I mean lost it! I don’t remember what I said, but it wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t polite, and on a scale of 1 to 10 my volume was at least an 11. In less than a minute, the production cell was up and running full speed and the Union reps were telling me that they’d stop and chat with me later.

Why did everyone scatter when I started yelling? Was it because they were intimidated by me? No. It was because only a couple of them had ever heard me swear, and none of them had ever heard me yell. It took them absolutely off guard and they knew that they had pushed me too far. They understood that their concerns of the moment did not outweigh my anger with them, and they quickly returned to work.

Roger, on the other hand, yelled all the time. Roger had been a foreman for 30 years and he had exactly 2 modes of operation: he was either laughing or yelling. There were no in-betweens. Unfortunately, because of this, his people never knew when Roger was truly mad and when he was just being Roger. Over the years, they learned to just treat him the same regardless of whether he was laughing or yelling, and that often made it really hard for Roger to get the job done.

Now I’m not perfect -- far from it -- but I’ve tried to take on some of the traits that I’ve seen in people who are truly thriving, and being generally level-headed while still exhibiting a full range of (appropriate) emotions is one of those traits. It allows you to incrementally increase your intensity when dealing with people, which allows them to react more appropriately to your requests (or demands, as the case may be). It may take some practice to know what is and what isn’t “appropriate”, but the key thing to remember is that you need to have more than 2 modes of operation!

Train hard and pray harder,
Brandon Jubar