The project reached its final phase. It sucked as always. Everything should be ready by Friday afternoon but it looked like the whole weekend at work was the new plan for a group of people. Megan the Eager was among people who volunteered to stay late on Friday. She stayed late at night cleaning the mess in the project, she came back on Sunday to finish what had to be finished and finally on Monday it was all done.
Megan was proud of herself. She felt completely exhausted because of working overtime all the weekend but she felt she was among few people who rescued the project. At the same time she expected her engagement to be appreciated in some way.
What she got was some not even decent bonus money counted in some magic way which wasn’t revealed to her. The money was paid much later than she was told it would be. She neither heard “thanks” from her bosses nor was her effort acknowledged in front of the team. Megan felt like her bosses thought it was her duty to work crazy hours to save the project.
Actually that was exactly what she heard from her manager a month later.
Failure
It was a double failure. Not only project was failed in a first place which led to crazy rescue plan instead of proper work organization to finish on time but also the manager failed as a leader.
Appreciate the team
It’s damn manager’s duty to appreciate extraordinary work of their team. This is one of things they’re paid for. People don’t work their asses off to save the project just because their manager wants them to. They do it because they want and feel capable to help. However team sprit has to be sustained or it fades away. When the next project needs a rescue plan Megan will be heading home. She was taught it isn’t worth the effort.
When team fails manager fails too
Even when a manager is a kind of super-hero he won’t be able to do the project alone. Most likely he no longer has appropriate skill anymore. That’s why he has team after all. However, when team fails that’s a manager’s failure too. When team fails but could have succeeded under better management that’s a double fail for a manager. It would take just a few simple steps to bring the project back on track and complete it as planned.
And killing spirit of people like Megan should be punished in some way. She won’t work for current managers forever after all.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Uh, I’ve been in Megan’s skin. It strikes me how destructive can one unspoken “thank you” be.
I know Megan. I’ve listened her talking how she was hurt in this situation a few times. So did our friends. The interesting thing is her boss didn’t. And even if he did he wouldn’t see a problem. And this is his problem in the first place.