In Biz

What would you have done?
by Bill Haight

It's been a busy week with lots of distractions due to weather. I know you all have many things on your minds regarding your homes and families so I want to thank you for giving your best efforts despite the distractions and helping us meet our goals.
Let's hope all the tough times for our part of the country are over. Have a good weekend.
Sincerely, Bill

That's an email I sent to my co-workers on June 10. I got several responses thanking me for my thoughtfulness and concern.
But here's my confession: Sending that message wasn't my original idea. So read on and tell me if I was being less than sincere.

The morning I sent that email, I had attended the Dane County Small Business Awards Breakfast. At that event, County Executive Kathleen Falk had appeared briefly before heading out to deal with flood-related issues.

She admonished the audience to do exactly what I later did: thank all our employees for coming to work when they and their families may have been facing flooding problems. In other words, I wrote that email at Kathleen Falk's suggestion.

So, should I have given credit by emailing, "Kathleen Falk asked me to thank you..."? Was I being a phony by implying that this was my original idea? When I got those thank-yous from my employees, should I have fessed up?

But it's even more complex than that. Falk gave her very appropriate charge after the person who introduced her, In Business Publisher Jody Glynn Patrick, had asked each breakfast speaker to finish their remarks with a challenge to the audience. In other words, it probably wasn't Falk's original idea either. And Jody acknowledged that she had gotten the idea from a UW Small Business Development Center class she had just taken, in which the instructor said that every presentation should end with a specific action item for the audience.

My thinking is that a message to an employee should be direct, and not qualified. A manager must take ownership of every message he's asked to deliver, whether he agrees or not. A manager can't be effective if he says things like, "I don't see how we can do it, but the boss says we should try to make the budget this month."

When a manager says, "The president wants me to give you a raise" — even if that statement is precisely correct — the manager is implying two things: He doesn't necessarily agree with the raise and he doesn't have the authority to grant it himself.

Managers should take credit, or heat, for the messages they deliver, even if the direction comes from someone else.

So by taking credit for the thoughtful message, was I being a phony, or just trying to be an effective manager?

What would you have done? Please leave your comment below.

Comments
(e-mail address used for verification purposes only and will not be published)

Hello Bill, There are two levels to your column which should be remembered. First is the professional which you've given some thought to the other is the personal which the people you thanked should also be considered. When you said thank you regardless of what your motivation was you were taking an individual action thanking people for their dedication to their job and helping an organization succeed. When someone says thank you I don't believe the source should be a concern as much as the ability to show someone appreciation for what they do. – Mark Rudman, Madison WI (2008-07-08 14:44)

We have one employee who had to move out of her duplex in Spring Green for two weeks. Another with a basement full of water. I hope I conveyed to both a sense of concern over their difficulties at home. But did I find out whether others are dealing with flood problems at home? Did I do a note of thanks to those of our people who had to kick it up several notches to handle their home issues and do their work for our customers and our company? No. I should have, but didn't. I will. And thanks to everyone in the chain for the good idea. – Jeff Wick (2008-07-16 08:55)