tipsteronline
Structural
- Jan 9, 2006
- 7
The name has been changed to protect the... well, I don't know if "innocent" is really the right... well, anyway, the name has been changed...
George is the manager of a newly established department in the building services group of a multi-disciplined engineering consulting and land-surveying company, in the upper Midwest. George has been in charge of this new department for about two (2) years.
George is a very nice guy. George is very likeable. George has been adjudged competent to practice professional engineering. George is not a very good leadership choice for establishing and growing a department. Examples of this…
George can’t seem to judge project time. When a new project comes in that might reasonably occupy only a third of an engineer’s or drafter’s time, he consistently over-estimates its complexity. It is not uncommon at all to hear George remark, “Oh, are you already done with that?” Part of this is that George may not be used to working on too much of anything larger than strip malls or multi-family structures, himself. (that last remark was culled from conversations with colleagues of George from other offices.)
George can’t judge talent. George has at least one drafter too many on his staff; but in managing with his heart instead of his head cannot bring himself to trim the resources down to what’s necessary. This is a situation that has existed for almost a year, and shows no signs of changing soon; just like our workload. More importantly, George consistently passes the more important work over the brighter, better qualified and more experienced of the two, only to assign it to the dullard. George should recognize that, with one of the drafters still at the earliest stages of development (and not moving forward quickly) and the other drafter at about a decade of experience (and heck-on-wheels fast, accurate and meticulous about self-checking), the one should be working UNDER the other; assuming there were enough work for two drafters in the first place. Instead, George has taken to sending the best drafting talent we could ask for in this region off to other offices to do THEIR drafting work. George is really working hard to validate the existence of the second position, and in the process is on his way to running off the real talent.
George doesn’t seem to know his own role. As a department manager, one might reasonably expect that George would be slightly less billable to projects than his staff engineers; what with all of the marketing that a department manager should be doing. And, even assuming times are slow, George’s first responsibility as department manager is to keep his people busy with whatever work he CAN secure; not keep said work to make himself more billable. Instead, George’s staff engineers have to literally approach him and beg off work from George that he would otherwise squirrel away and keep for himself.
George’s best “clients” are other departments within the company. George’s main marketing strategy is hyper-focused around building and maintaining relationships with THESE people, almost exclusively. George should look around outside the company, and recognize that there are people working for OTHER companies that might actually hire us. These people are called architects. They are usually listed in the Yellow Pages. It’s alright to call them. They might reject you, initially, for some amount of time. It’s still alright to call them. It’s even alright to call them more than once.
George is licensed in a neighboring state in which the company has no department assets of our type. This means that George has the WHOLE state open to him to market. Of course, inexplicably, George chooses to spend virtually NO time marketing in that state. Even our FIRE PROTECTION folks (in other words, PEOPLE WHO DESIGN SPRINKLERS…!) are making money down there, for goodness’ sake…
George is slowly, and very certainly losing the confidence of the people under him. Even a subordinate who has traveled a fairly long road with George thus far has remarked that he has no idea what logic George is employing in even the most routine circumstances; that he has no idea “…what the heck [George] is thinking, at all…” Some of George’s staff are agitated and even upset. It is a fact that there are other department managers who are aware of this discontent and who understand how it is affecting the growth potential for the department and for the building services group in general. However, it seems not to have excited anyone further up the chain of command, to any extent whatsoever. In fact, it even seems that George received something of a pep-talk from some of his higher-ups not too long ago, wherein they voiced their apparent confidence in his ability to lead and develop the department. It is truly an unusual situation; that a department manager should earn such confidence as George has from HIS managers, without first securing and maintaining the confidence of his OWN subordinates. One would suppose that the latter would be far easier to establish than the prior. Strange… very strange, indeed.
George blew a HUGE opportunity to rectify the above-stated confidence issues with ALL of his subordinates, at the recent end-of-year reviews …
George is a very nice guy. George is very likeable. George has been adjudged competent to practice professional engineering. George is not a very good leadership choice for establishing and growing a department.
What can be done about George? Can anything be done about George…? SHOULDN’T something be done about George…?!!
George is the manager of a newly established department in the building services group of a multi-disciplined engineering consulting and land-surveying company, in the upper Midwest. George has been in charge of this new department for about two (2) years.
George is a very nice guy. George is very likeable. George has been adjudged competent to practice professional engineering. George is not a very good leadership choice for establishing and growing a department. Examples of this…
George can’t seem to judge project time. When a new project comes in that might reasonably occupy only a third of an engineer’s or drafter’s time, he consistently over-estimates its complexity. It is not uncommon at all to hear George remark, “Oh, are you already done with that?” Part of this is that George may not be used to working on too much of anything larger than strip malls or multi-family structures, himself. (that last remark was culled from conversations with colleagues of George from other offices.)
George can’t judge talent. George has at least one drafter too many on his staff; but in managing with his heart instead of his head cannot bring himself to trim the resources down to what’s necessary. This is a situation that has existed for almost a year, and shows no signs of changing soon; just like our workload. More importantly, George consistently passes the more important work over the brighter, better qualified and more experienced of the two, only to assign it to the dullard. George should recognize that, with one of the drafters still at the earliest stages of development (and not moving forward quickly) and the other drafter at about a decade of experience (and heck-on-wheels fast, accurate and meticulous about self-checking), the one should be working UNDER the other; assuming there were enough work for two drafters in the first place. Instead, George has taken to sending the best drafting talent we could ask for in this region off to other offices to do THEIR drafting work. George is really working hard to validate the existence of the second position, and in the process is on his way to running off the real talent.
George doesn’t seem to know his own role. As a department manager, one might reasonably expect that George would be slightly less billable to projects than his staff engineers; what with all of the marketing that a department manager should be doing. And, even assuming times are slow, George’s first responsibility as department manager is to keep his people busy with whatever work he CAN secure; not keep said work to make himself more billable. Instead, George’s staff engineers have to literally approach him and beg off work from George that he would otherwise squirrel away and keep for himself.
George’s best “clients” are other departments within the company. George’s main marketing strategy is hyper-focused around building and maintaining relationships with THESE people, almost exclusively. George should look around outside the company, and recognize that there are people working for OTHER companies that might actually hire us. These people are called architects. They are usually listed in the Yellow Pages. It’s alright to call them. They might reject you, initially, for some amount of time. It’s still alright to call them. It’s even alright to call them more than once.
George is licensed in a neighboring state in which the company has no department assets of our type. This means that George has the WHOLE state open to him to market. Of course, inexplicably, George chooses to spend virtually NO time marketing in that state. Even our FIRE PROTECTION folks (in other words, PEOPLE WHO DESIGN SPRINKLERS…!) are making money down there, for goodness’ sake…
George is slowly, and very certainly losing the confidence of the people under him. Even a subordinate who has traveled a fairly long road with George thus far has remarked that he has no idea what logic George is employing in even the most routine circumstances; that he has no idea “…what the heck [George] is thinking, at all…” Some of George’s staff are agitated and even upset. It is a fact that there are other department managers who are aware of this discontent and who understand how it is affecting the growth potential for the department and for the building services group in general. However, it seems not to have excited anyone further up the chain of command, to any extent whatsoever. In fact, it even seems that George received something of a pep-talk from some of his higher-ups not too long ago, wherein they voiced their apparent confidence in his ability to lead and develop the department. It is truly an unusual situation; that a department manager should earn such confidence as George has from HIS managers, without first securing and maintaining the confidence of his OWN subordinates. One would suppose that the latter would be far easier to establish than the prior. Strange… very strange, indeed.
George blew a HUGE opportunity to rectify the above-stated confidence issues with ALL of his subordinates, at the recent end-of-year reviews …
George is a very nice guy. George is very likeable. George has been adjudged competent to practice professional engineering. George is not a very good leadership choice for establishing and growing a department.
What can be done about George? Can anything be done about George…? SHOULDN’T something be done about George…?!!
![[cheers]](/data/assets/smilies/cheers.gif "[cheers] [cheers]")
