Last week I was travelling to Chennai and got to Mumbai airport well in time for my flight, checked in, went through security and went to the gate. I settled down as I still had about 40 minutes before the flight took off. Within 5 minutes I heard the person at the gate say, "Ready to board for Chennai, passengers please come towards Gate 14." I got up, pleasantly surprised that we were going to take off on time, happy as it was an evening flight and normally there are a lot of delays. The guy checked my boarding card and then security checked the security tag, boarded the bus as the plane was in a remote bay. I was one of the first to enter the bus so got a seat right behind the driver.
When the bus was full, the agent came and told the driver to go towards Bay 83. The bus took off at a measured pace, like he had a lot of time. As we reached the bay, I found the driver beginning to get a little concerned. He was looking this way and that, trying to figure out what was happening. He finally slowed down, took a U-turn and pulled to a stop. By now, all the people in the coach were getting agitated and questioning him. He was getting very nervous and finally pulled up next to another aircraft and called the ground staff who were handling that aircraft and asked them where the aircraft was. The staff said that the flight hadn't yet landed.
That created a storm in the bus; everybody was shouting, "Why have you brought us out here when the flight hasn't even landed." He was quite shaken up; didn't say anything but started driving back towards the terminal realizing however, that he couldn't release us back into the terminal because we had already passed through security. But he parked next to where we had all boarded. By now, people were really upset when an official from the airline came to the window and spoke to the driver who told him how upset the people were. He came on the bus, held up his hands and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I sincerely apologize for what has happened. There was a miscommunication. The tower had told us that the flight had landed and we were given clearance to send you all out. We apologize and I take full responsibility for what has happened. You understand that we cannot let you back into the terminal. What can we do from here? We can open the bus doors…" He deflected everybody away from their agitated mood. His demeanor was so good and calm that he just calmed everyone down and got them to a point where one person actually asked for water. He laughed and said, "You know I can't do that." By that time, everyone was in such good humor.
I thought how well he had handled the situation. The person driving the bus was really upset. He had probably heard how unruly passengers could be, taking things into their own hands. We've been reading a lot about that in the last few months. Yet, here was one boss who stepped up, took the flak away from the driver, took responsibility and managed to go through this difficult time and handle the situation well.
Robert Sutton, writing an article "Managing Yourself: The Boss As Human Shield" says, "The best bosses are committed to letting their workers work. They take pride in being human shields, absorbing or deflecting heat from inside or outside the company, doing all manner of boring and silly tasks, and battling idiots and slights that make life harder than necessary on their people." How true! As we look at the people who work for us, sometimes they are put into situations where they may not have actually contributed to it, but being in the firing line, they take a lot of flak. Sometimes what is incumbent upon good leadership is to be able to step in and say, "I'll handle it. You carry on doing your work. I'll take care of all this outside stuff that is going on."
Henry Mintzberg in 1975 brought out a real classic, "The Manager's Job." In jest he says, "Somebody only half in jest once defined the manager as that person who sees his visitors so that everyone else can get his work done." True to a certain extent! Yet, when we look at what managers are expected to do, they are expected to let the people who work for them do the work that they are there to do and to be able to run interference if they need to from outside sources that may impinge upon their people doing the work that they have been hired to do.
I read an article (I think it was in the same article that I mentioned) where Sutton references Ann Rhoades, former head of "People" at Southwest Airlines saying how she noted that a fellow executive was standing at the gate when a nasty customer was just giving the gate agent a lot of flak and being generally very nasty. He walked in and told the person, "Excuse me, we are not going to allow you to fly on our airlines. We don't allow people who talk like this to travel on an airline like ours." He marched him out to an American Airlines counter, bought him a ticket on that airline and left him there. This brought so much of goodwill because everybody was getting upset with the way this passenger was talking. The manager walked in and salvaged the situation and also allowed the other gate agents to feel good about the work that they were doing.
I wonder, when hearing this, whether you are thinking of yourself as a manager, of the people who work with you. They are under tremendous pressure and sometimes the pressure comes from us. As we work too, they can absorb the pressure that we are putting on them. Often times, they do a lot of work and may not even get credit for the work that they are doing because the boss ultimately is the one who gets the job done. Yet, it is so good if people who work in organizations get credit for the hard work they do.
I'll never forget listening to an interview that our former President, Dr. Abdul Kalam gave. He talks about the time when he was in charge of launching SLV 3. That was the first one that was going up. He was the project manager and they were all set for the launch. He gave the 'Go' signal and 40 seconds before it could take off; there was a sudden glitch, red lights flashing. His panel of experts told him that there was a problem and it was his call whether to launch or not. He turned round. He said, "I had 5 experts behind me and they all advised me not to launch. They wanted to wait and fix the glitch. Ultimately it was my call. So I thought over it thinking that we could ride out this particular glitch. So I decided to launch. So we launched and the rocket went up. Then, 317 seconds later, it turned round and crashed into the Bay of Bengal. I just put my head down because crores and crores of rupees and been lost. I was so devastated, walked back to my office and sat down by myself."
"After some time, there was a knock on my door and there was Professor Satish Dhawan, Chairman of ISRO. He said, "Come on Kalam, we've got to go and meet the press." I dreaded this moment having to answer the questions from the press. We walked together and sat down. Professor Dhawan answered every question. Not once did he say that I was responsible for giving the go-ahead. He took the responsibility for it. But then he also said, "Next year, we will have a similar launch and it will be successful."
Dr. Kalam said, "We worked on that launch for a year and on 18th July 1980, we launched again. It was a successful launch. I went back to my office filled with euphoria. Professor Dhawan again came in and said that we had to meet the press. I said, Let's go sir. But he said, "I'm not coming with you. This is your moment. You go and meet the press." I learnt such an important lesson at day, how leaders step in when the chips are down, taking responsibility for what has happened. But they move away when everything has gone well and give the credit to the people who are under them." Wonderful lesson! Difficult one at times for many and yet, one that will get a lot of loyalty out of the people who work for us.
As we look at how we can work with people, how to get the best out of them. I think there are a couple of lessons here:
1. To be able to take the heat for mistakes that are made
2. To be able to run interference so that the people who are working can do the work and their jobs.
3. Let the employees take credit for the work that they have done.
I came in this morning and as is my normal practice, I was spending time reading the Scriptures, inviting God to lead me in what to speak today. I read this passage about God allowing punishment to come upon who had gone away from Him and then, another country, seeing that this was happening to the people being disciplined, thought that they could take advantage. God says to them, "I will not allow you to take advantage of the situation." That's a good lesson for us as well - even when the people who work for us are being disciplined in some way and others think they can exploit that situation, to be able to stand and say, "No way! That's not going to happen, not on my turf, not while I am heading this team or project," to be able to put a ring around discipline even when it is taking place.
Some good thoughts for all of us today in how we operate with people who work for us. My prayer is that today you will just take what I've said and allow it to move around in your mind and see if there are some changes that can be made in the way you handle people under you.
Can I pray for you? Almighty God, on each one of these precious ones on this call, clothe us with wisdom that we may be able to act in a right manner with people who work with us, to give them the correct place, to shield them when they need shielding, to be able to protect them, to do what we can to help them to really work well in the environments that they work. We ask all of this Lord Jesus, in Your name. Amen.
• Robert I Sutton, "Managing Yourself: The Boss as Human Shield." http://hbr.org/2010/09/managing-yourself-the-boss-as-human-shield/ar/3
• Dr. Abdul Kalam story, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/satish-dhawan-the-gentle-colossus/article24715.ece; http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CEwQFjAH&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bookbox.com%2Fsystem%2Ffiles%2Ffree_stuff%2Fpdfs%2F028_AK5_ENG_UK.pdf%3Fdownload%3D1&ei=uxlPVP3aF4Og8QX_4oIo&usg=AFQjCNE2Eq7Vf2bTO8d0HVyKpDlRRstlqg&bvm=bv.77880786,d.dGc
• Ann Rhoades, former head of "People" at Southwest.
• Henry Mintzberg, "The Manager's Job."
• From Scriptures" Book of Ezekiel
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