My new boss had never met me and only knew me from my resume. We shook hands, walked into his office; he lit a cigarette and started talking.
“Here is how I would like us to work together:
- Anything you do and do well, the whole world is going to know about, because I am going to tell them.
- Any mistake you make, I am going to have to own, because I didn’t train you correctly.
- We’ll try to keep those between just us. You are new here so you are allowed some Rookie mistakes. After you have been here awhile, don’t make rookie mistakes. Make great big “boy no one ever thought of that before” mistakes. I will try to help you over those, and protect you. If the stuff that comes at us a result of a big mistake knocks me over and then you…we’ll work it out, together.
- When you do something for me, an analysis, a presentation, whatever, I will always give you credit. I will never, use your work as my own.
- I try to treat everyone fairly, don’t confuse that with equally.
- The more I learn about you the more I know how you think. When I understand how you think and solve problems, I’ll know how to trust you, because I’ll know how you’ll react to a situation. I’ll know how big a canvass I can trust you to paint.
- If you are in a meeting and I’m not, be careful of what you say. People will assume that because they KNOW I trust you that you are speaking for me and we may just have to actually do what you said.
- Sometimes I may ask you, sometimes I may tell you. It’s never personal. It just is.
- If you have an issue or problem, please ask for help. Don’t drown quietly.
- My job is to teach you all I know, and learn from you anything you want to teach me. If I have a chance to be promoted, I want to have developed 2-3 people on the bench, who can do my job. If you get promoted, I want you prepared to do a really good job. If someday, I have to work for you, I want you to know enough so that I have a really good boss.
- Do you have any questions?”
I didn’t have any questions. And later that year when I made a mistake that shut down a production line and two packing lines for more than half a day, I learned what “fairly, don’t confuse that with equally”, really meant. (Some future post, perhaps.)