Retreat Hell

An early post today because I’m going to spend the entire day in a leadership retreat with the union leaders and employees in leadership positions.  This is the third year in a row that I’ve done one of these things and while there have been tangible benefits they are a dull, soul sucking drain.  They are needed to get the subordinate leaders to actually do their jobs in a professional manner.  It’s just an entire day of contemplating one’s navel is not a recipe for morale enhancement.

The focus today will be decision making.  All too often we have employees who have the authority and experience to fix problems but try pushing the issue up the chain so someone else will decide.  This has the inevitable result of making a simple problem worse since it’s been allowed to marinate.  An old Army saying that still rings very true, “Bad news does not get better with time”.

The union leaders invariably say these employees are afraid to make these type decisions because they don’t want to lose their leadership positions by making mistakes.  I’m going to have to convince them that not making a decision is in fact a worse “mistake” than an honest effort to do their jobs.  I will underwrite authentic mistakes but not indecision.

A lively source of discussion in the military is always whether leadership can be taught or whether certain people are born to it.  While I certainly think some people are born with more innate capability, simple low level leadership can be taught and the military is a great example of this.  Take care of your people before yourself, focus on the end result, and be fair with subordinates will serve most people as good starting points. 

This is going to be painful.