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Management Side
Week of 27 October 14: Messes Part Two--fixing your own mess

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Last week we talked about inheriting messes. This week we will talk about fixing one you created.

This is tougher.

First, you may not know you have created a mess and second, your reaction may be to flee. Many people make a career out of fleeing messes they have created and, at the same time, finding a way to get themselves promoted to higher and higher levels of responsibility. This column is not for them. They don't read Nip Impressions anyway. We talk about holding people accountable, something in which they have no interest.

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How do you know if you have created a mess? There are many signs of this.

• People are leaving your department
• You are spending an ever increasing amount of time firefighting
• You spend a lot of time in your boss's office explaining things
• Your budget is out of control
• People avoid you
• You hate to come to work

There are other hints, but mostly they come back to these points.

However, the first thing is to realize you have a problem and that life can be better. So, if you have been in your role for more than a year, print out this column and take a good, hard critical look at yourself. This step--just creating the awareness in your own mind--is tough to do and even harder to execute.

So what if you conclude that you have made a mess of things? There are two ways to make a change, both of which involve drawing a line in the sand and stepping over it to a new world.

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Is the correction under way and what do you tell your clients? ... Check out the latest edition of Strategic & Financial Arguments.

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One way is to call a meeting of your direct reports for a confessional. I don't recommend this unless you really know your direct reporters and can predict their reactions very, very accurately. For this is the time for a disloyal direct reporter to stab you in the back. However, if you choose to take this route, outline what you have decided is wrong and what corrective actions you plan to take. Seek input but in the same breath tell your direct reports that you are the one that is accountable and it will be solely up to you to accept, modify or reject their input. Let them know that at the end of the day, you will set the course and be held accountable for it.

The second way is more difficult but safer for your career. It is to go back and read last week's column and execute it as if you were walking into the mess you are in, rather than waking up and finding yourself in a mess you created. This is by far the safer path. You will be having lots of discussions with your direct reports and you will be explaining to them that it is a new day, but your actions through this method are far more powerful than big speeches.

If you take the second path, execute it to the full extent, including the part about living in the trenches with the hourly workers on their shifts. You can do this by saying you have become aware that you have observed that some ways of doing tasks have changed and you want to be up to date. No one can argue with you about this.

For our quiz this week, we'll ask how practical you think the ideas in this week's column are. You may take it here.

Be safe and we will talk next week.

You can own your Nip Impressions Library by ordering "Raising EBITDA ... the lessons of Nip Impressions."


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