Two Different Questions, One Surprising Answer.
Posted by Mary B. Lucas | Posted in
Do you know the Number One reason a person stays with their job? Do you know the Number One reason a person leaves their job? (Here's a hint: Both questions have the same answer!)
Cue the drum roll, please. The answer? Their boss.
I shared that fun fact at a recent speaking engagement and a visiting psychologist later stopped me to chat. She asked me this: “Do you know the Number One reason a person stays in their marriage? And do you know the Number One reason people leave their marriage? The answer to both questions is their spouse."
Turns out things are no different at work or at home. Positive relationships with people you spend time with is crucial to your commitment to them. But it's not just that person's presence that instills this dedication: It's how they make you feel when you are with them.
I recall a story from noted business author and speaker Tom Peters called "The Million Dollar Mistake" that dramatizes this very point. Mike worked at a bank and was given 18 months and one million dollars to develop a very important company project. However, at the end of that schedule, the project failed to successfully deliver the anticipated results.
Mike was called in to a meeting with his boss, and felt certain he was to be terminated.
“I'm sure you intend to fire me,” Mike reluctantly said to his boss. “You gave me a huge assignment that cost the bank a lot of money and I basically blew it. I’ll go pack my things.”
As Mike turned his back and began to retreat from the office, his boss’s words stopped him.
“Are you kidding me?” the boss said. The boss stood up, hands firmly placed on his desk.
“I just spent a million dollars on your education, " he said. "I’m not going to fire you. I’m going to promote you. I don’t want you taking elsewhere the knowledge and experience you've gained working on this project. I believe in you Mike. Now, get back to work. You have lots to do.”
Can you imagine what shifted in Mike’s mindset after hearing those words from his boss? Just when he thought he had made the biggest mistake of his life, he is given a promotion! Even though the million dollars was not successfully utilized, his boss saw it from a completely different perspective. Despite what the employee perceived to be his colossal failure, his boss saw otherwise. To him, it was money well spent.
Because of his boss, Mike would now focus on giving his best to his employer. No doubt that million dollars would be returned exponentially in countless ways in the years ahead.
More importantly, Mike would most likely change his perspective on treating those under his responsibility, choosing to see the positive side of negative situations in all of his subsequent business encounters. For Mike, this was a genuine lesson in not only bringing out the best in another, but in how to be a great boss. Mike had learned how to confidently turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones.
When you bring out the best in others, their natural inclination is to do their best for you. They want to learn from you, be with you and buy from you. It works, time and time again.
Let me hear your stories. And please remember to connect with me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and of course my website. Thanks for reading!
Mary,
When I read your blog posting just now about how one stays in a job or leaves a job because of their boss, it brought forth so many experiences I've had in my career, with me being "Mike" and me being "Mike's boss." It struck such a chord in me, and you asked for stories, so I just had to send you my story. Grab a cup of tea...here we go!
My very first boss in the staffing industry owns a large regional staffing organization out of southern California and he embodies this story....no, the philosophy is really a religion to him.
I worked with him for about 10 years. I will never forget my interview with him. Knowing him well after many years, I now realize he had sized me up in the first 20 minutes and decided to hire me. The remainder of the interview was him sharing his essential philosophy of work. It was as follows:
"Kitty, I have one expectation of you if you come to work for me. I expect you....no, I require you to make mistakes." I was stunned by this statement. Surely, there must be more expectations I commented.
"No. One expectation. You must make mistakes. You see, if you aren't making mistakes, you aren't taking risks, learning and discovering new ways of conducting business, trailblazing new types of staffing, being creative with solutions…. I will know you are doing your job when you are making mistakes. I call it “going to school.”
Fast forward. I had been there about six months or so when I created a unique solution for one of our clients with a very creative way of calculating the pricing of a project. In retrospect, it was a solid solution; however, we’d never done it before and I made a critical mistake of negotiating a “not to exceed” cost of the project. By the way, this was a software conversion at a law firm client, so, it was not a small $$ deal. You see where this is going, don’t you?
The project ended and we were upside down to the tune of several…read that SEVERAL thousand dollars. I had notified my boss of the impending issue when we saw we were nearing our cap and still had a couple of weeks of work remaining, so, he wasn’t blind-sided. I was beside myself, much like Mike. I was ready to fall on my sword and resign. I went to him, showed him the financial reporting, explained where we were and I swear….he got up from the table, came around to me, hugged me and said, “is that the big problem? I thought it was something awful like you were ill or quitting. This is just going to school!
He then said something I came to live by in life. “I would rather you go out on a limb than never get close to the tree.” He then helped me unwind the issue, took me with him to discuss the situation with the client, fixed it, we lost no money and the client loved the work we did on the conversion so much they were our “poster client” for conversion projects.
I made many more mistakes over the years working with him and all he ever said was the same thing…”well, we just went to school.” Those were ten happy years. He never failed to make me feel valued and important to his organization. He looked for opportunities for me to work to my strengths, many times creating positions to add value to the organization and keep me energized and engaged. He stretched me professionally being careful not to stretch so far that he broke me. Twenty years later he remains a close friend and mentor. It’s been a wonderful relationship.
I haven't anyone reporting to me these days, but, I never forgot those lessons I learned about how people work for people and not for the name on the side of a building.
Thank you for reminding me of some of my best life's lessons!
Thanks Miss Kitty for sharing these heartfelt thoughts! You were/are so lucky to have Mike in your life. As my Dad used to say "Learn something from everybody you meet" you certainly learned much from Mike as I am sure he learned from you. I know I did/do!
Loved this, Mary! It never hurts to be reminded how important your role is as a leader in encouraging people to learn, grow, and be happy. There is no better way to learn than to make mistakes and to grow, to be successful, we have to feel like we are in a place where we are allowed to take calculated risks. My boss is so great this way- she always tells me that you don't learn anything from the things that go well... it is in your mistakes that you find the learning opportunity. Love her. ;-)
Thanks Laura for these thoughtful comments and I do agree you do have a pretty spectacular boss :) !!