Manager in the Making - 5 :: Empowering with caution

Hi All

Jan I week was very special to me at office. We had an exhibition in our organization to display our best practices to other teams. This was started last year, and I still remember the extra ordinary moments that I had during Jan 2007 when I visited some of the stalls a year back.

I had written about the session I had with my team earlier during Dec (Transcendance - 7 ::: "Making debut in SINGING") & the eventful day arrived during Mid January. The 4 member team constituted by us had worked tirelessly for a whole week and one guy with too much of activity in right side of his brain had actually video shot himself & made a MPEG file of the presentation that he wanted to make for one particular idea that we wanted to present….He along with his personal friends were found playing a role play and then this fellow coming up in the screen to explain very nicely the importance of our practice. The total file ran for close to 5 minutes. The introduction was done superbly with thrilling music in the background giving introduction to our Company, team and the ideas that we want to present (it was like some big banner film !!)

Getting enthused with this, the other team members too had prepared their part well and we all gathered for a mock session on the day when the exhibition was organized in the afternoon. With too many other things to do, this could not be organized by us on the previous day. I had sent a meeting request to the whole team (around 50) to gather in the central space to have this mock session around 11 AM….(The exhibition had been organized at 2 PM to 6 PM – just half day)

I started noticing that our team was not ready with the other preparations to be made at our stall (the charts and the table arrangements) and realized that they had too much of communication gaps amongst themselves…. Since the morning of the day, I literally started barking at them for their lack of preparedness and giving them instructions in quick succession asking each one to do various things and also appealed the other members to volunteer some support…The whole hall became like a marriage hall with every one buzzing around and at the corner, I could see my Manager was proudly smiling at me and telling our GM on how the team is doing things this year unlike the previous year….

When all the other stalls were ready at 1.30 PM, we stormed there with all our charts and canvas that we wanted to hang around…and did every thing in a hurry while other stalls & the Quality office colleagues were looking at us with lot of curiosity… It was an extremely eventful day & I had to leave from our stall by 2 PM when the exhibition started as I was one of the Judges to visit few other stalls….

Heard that our boys made a great show and there was a big queue even after 6 PM when the event closed….!! I realized the need to chip in when the team members are not so time conscious & not used to big occasions…..

While the entire team including this core team of exhibition was & still is in upbeat mood about the performance (we did not get any prize though...!!) , I was seriously thinking about the lapses that we made, the communication gaps between them and their inability to pace up with time when the occassion demands.... I really learnt the dimensions of delegation and the aspects to be taken care while empowering others.....

suchoo