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February 2025 | The Power of Communication: How One Leader Lost His Team by Ignoring It

Writer's picture: Mister MikeMister Mike

February  2025
February  2025

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Sir Isaac Newton 1643-1727


I had a chat several months back with a company’s General Manager. I had always considered him a strong leader who moved his team with strong directions, goals, and motivation. In our conversation, he told me a story that I thought you might find interesting. His organization consisted of six team “pods” with each pod having five team members. While he was the General Manager, he had an Assistant General Manager who had been with the company for many years. She was well respected, but she wanted to retire to move on to the next chapter.

 

A new Assistant Manager was hired from within the company, we’ll call him Richard. Things started out well, but eventually a problem arose. Richard looked at the pods, each with five members. He had what he thought was a great idea. Even though the people in their pods were happy and had been in their pods for a long time, working with the same people, Richard’s idea was to mix them up so that they could get to know other team members. On a particular Monday, everyone arrived at work and found a list tacked up which had everyone’s new pod assignment. As you might have guessed, this was not well received. They were all upset, refused to change pods, and went en masse to see the General Manager to loudly file a complaint. As it happened, the General Manager had no idea what Richard had done and had to tell the irate team members to take a break while he did some research. He visited Richard in his office and asked how things were going. Richard said, “Great!” As far as he could see things were going well. Richard was then confronted with the situation. He was shocked that anyone would be unwilling to try the new arrangement. The General Manager asked Richard if he had shared the idea with the team members in advance. Richard had to admit he had not.  The General Manager requested Richard to apologize for the oversight and rather share with the team members his thought process in implementing the new change.

 

After the group meeting everyone went back to work with their original team members. Interestingly, though, over the next few days staff members shared with Richard that they agreed the idea was a good idea. The issue was that it was sprung on them without good communication.  Given the opportunity to build trust with his team, Richard shrugged off the thought that he could have communicated the change more effectively. This initial lack of communication and lack of understanding by Richard, established a lack of trust for going forward. In losing their trust, Richard effectively also lost the team. He eventually had to leave the company. While we may be oversimplifying the end here, there is certainly much to learn from the overall story.  

 

New ideas are a must to encourage, promote, and create change.  Sometimes it can happen in isolation, but it is most effective and well received when there is good communication to and buy-in from those who the change most impacts.

 

“The only thing constant is change.” – Heraclitus

 

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi



Michael M. Carney mr.mikecarney@gmail.com

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