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I made a mistake today. As a leader I probably make at least 25 plus mistakes each day. As a member of management, with those minute-to-minute operations decisions we have to make, well, we learn from them, and we will make a better decision next time. But things like putting a trailer in the wrong door or slotting an item in a slot that makes absolutely no sense or calling lunch before you’re far enough into the selection batches, or maybe assigning a load to the wrong individual. All those things are fixable, and easy to learn from. We raise our hands, take responsibility for it and move on. When dealing with someone though, have you ever thought “I could have handled that differently”.
I’m Marty with Warehouse and Operations as a Career and today I did not handle something right. A large part of our shift, as managers, we will be dealing with people. People are not perfect. I am by no means perfect. None of us are robots. Our employees want to do a good job, we want to do a good job, and our bosses want to do a good job. Have you ever heard that being human can sometimes bring some baggage with it.
While correcting your child have you ever said “could you have done something differently” to them, or “now how else could you have handled that”.
I think us as managers and us as employees need to ask ourselves something like that before we speak or act on something, and more often than not probably!
It has been a week of “could I have done something differently”! Today I want to share a couple of them with you. A couple of weeks ago we talked about slowing down and how advantageous it can be within our careers! I think the same goes for thinking before we act, especially for ourselves. It’s hard for us. We have responsibilities, deadlines, expense targets, productivity to be concerned with and we may be covering a position ourselves. Things like that are our job. But, in reality, our job as leaders and employees are to be respectful, to listen first, digest the information shared with us, look at the other side, the top and the bottom, understand the situation and then, and only then make a decision!
A judge has it easy. He or she has laws to go by. ABC as we say. All they have to decide is did someone break the law. And in many instances, they’ll have 12 people give them the answer. I know I just over simplified that but most of the time I feel their job is much easier than ours!
I’m upset with myself because I allowed myself, I believe solely because I thought that I was in a hurry to haphazardly listen to a colleague explain something that was of great importance to him. It was a work subject but something he personally believed should be included as a topic at a startup meeting. I am certain that he felt like I was not listening or even worse that I did not care about his idea or thoughts.
After about 20 minutes, when I had completed what I had on my mind, I immediately was bothered by what I had done. There was no deadline with what I was doing, not at all. When approached by the gentleman, if I was not going to listen, I should have said, wait a few minutes and I’ll come find you. Let me wrap this up first. Or I could have stopped what I was doing and thinking for about 5 minutes and gave him my full attention. Either of those options would have made him feel better. And ultimately made me feel better about myself. 5 minutes. So I would have completed my task in 25 minutes instead of 20 minutes. I consider that as bad management. And I will work on handling those types of situations much better going forward.
I went back to his department later in the day but I couldn’t find him. I didn’t want to just apologize but rather let him know that I had learned something and that I wanted to do better. His idea was a really good one and I did want to know more about it. I will see him tomorrow and I hope that he understands I was in the wrong and have accepted responsibility for it.
Like I said earlier, it is hard to be ON all the time. To always do what is right. But I feel, whither we are a manager or an employee, when dealing with other humans, we owe it to them and to ourselves to slow down and think to ourselves, is this how I want to handle this? It will pay off in the long run.
I am always being asked, do you think that was right. Or, why did they do that to me. Or that was just wrong. I am usually answering with the question “well, if I asked them what are they going to tell me? That’ll usually bring a bit more of the story out.
Last week a young woman, I’m not sure where she was from, but I overheard that a woman had gone to her manager and told her that she was tired and was going home. I heard that the manager explained that unless she was sick that she needed her to stay another 3 hours and finish the shift. It appeared the woman went ahead and left without saying anything else to her manager. She did however, upon gathering her things for the day, express to a coworker that she was tired, shed stayed out way to late the night before and was going home. That she didn’t care what happened.
Upon hearing that the associate had left for the day, the manager went to HR and asked that the employee be terminated for job abandonment. After investigating the incident, they agreed, and parted ways with the associate. Now I did not hear that the friend had any input during the investigation but, well, maybe she should not had made the statement I’m tired and stayed out way to late last night!
The next day the associate was very humble, apologized, and asked if she could have her job back. I don’t think it happened. I wonder if she had started out by being humble and honest about needing to leave, maybe a bit more open or communicated better if the outcome would had been different or better. I can’t help but believe it would have.
I think some positions automatically keep us in check as employees! I mean, as a high productivity order selector, once we’re at work, it’s hard to let our mouths get us in trouble! Any productivity task like the forklift, pallet running, unloading or loading keeps us busy with very little human contact. But take a position like a warehouse clerk, a returns agent, or maybe a packer or machine operator. We have more time on our hands, our minds can wonder. And before you know it, we are handling something without thinking it through! Oh, and a lot of times the person we’re dealing with is our boss. I don’t think it should matter if our injustice is with a boss or our peer working beside us. Wrong is wrong. Have you ever felt bad about handling something wrong?
So, this week I was conducting a phone interview with a prospect out of state. His resume looked good, he didn’t have much experience in the position he had applied for and to be honest I was about to brush him off, end the conversation and let him know that should something open up that he was qualified for I would give him a call. I had quit listening to him just like I had quit paying attention to my coworker last week! I made a conscious effort to re-engage and join the conversation. By listening to what he had to say instead of worrying about making the next phone call I was able to fill a position that had been open far too long. He had those skills and just didn’t have them listed on his resume. He had adjusted his resume to reflect the position he’d seen. Yep, I was a bit proud of myself. I slowed down and asked myself “am I handling the situation correctly and how better can I handle this. It paid off for me.
You know as managers we make decisions on the fly all day long. But when we’re dealing with people, we should remember that they are people. If we mess up our productivity flow by making a wrong call, usually there is no harm. learn from it and move on. However, if an associate or one of our own employees are involved there can be everlasting consequences, we could lose a good team member, a friend, or even lose our own position.
Like being a lead, supervisor or a manager isent hard enough, I’ve thrown these thoughts into the mix! Just to let you know I did speak to the gentleman I had brushed off and come to find out I had not offended him at all. He stated that he could see that I was busy and had planned on catching me the next day anyway. That didn’t make me feel any better about myself! I hope that I have learned from my week! And maybe I’ve triggered a thought or two for you as well? If so, share your experience with us. You can post directly on our website or send me an email to host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com.
Another great place to start a discussion is on our Facebook page or the warehouse equipment operators’ group on Facebook. Using @whseandops will get you there on Facebook or Twitter!
Until next week try it, slow down, think before we act, especially if we’re in a hurry or are upset about something. And hey, ya’ll be safe out there this week.