Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Find Purpose


Here is a quick story. The leader of a team of 5 people has not communicated with one member of the team in 28 days. The team member has sent the usual weekly reports, emails etc. All not acknowledged, not responded to and absolutely no oral communication, not even a meeting scheduled. The leader used to have weekly meetings and at one point in the beginning of the year, completely wiped out all meetings from his calendar and so it also wiped out the meetings on his team’s calendars.


This tells a story of purpose. What purpose did this leader serve if business could operate as usual without any communication from them? What purpose was there for the leader to not communicate for such a long period of time? What purpose is there for submitting reports that are not acknowledged? All is time wasted. And left behind is also a bad taste in the mouths of the team, lack of recognition and the potential for sub-par performance.

How did the story end? The team performed well without the leader because they felt more empowered and less micro-managed, although they were guessing the fate of their leader. The meetings were cancelled because the leader was moved into a new area – though the team was not told until later in the month. Then all the actions made sense.

In the end, it left the team wondering what purpose they served....if they were not important enough to be included in the conversation earlier so they could redirect their inquiries.


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