I once knew a manager who always seemed to be in a hurry.
SHORT STORIES
I once knew a manager who always seemed to be in a hurry.
Whenever I asked, “Do you have a minute?” he would look at his watch and say:
“You have 30 seconds. And you’ve already used 10.”
He was constantly moving from one place to another, checking the time, giving instructions, solving problems, and getting involved in almost everything his team did.
He was busy. Very busy.
But there was a reason.
Without realizing it, he was creating the dependency that was keeping him busy.
The more decisions he made for his people, the more they needed him to make decisions. The more problems he solved for them, the more problems eventually found their way back to him.
His availability became a bottleneck of his own making.
When I trained him in TPS, we talked about stepping away from the urgent long enough to work on what was important.
We also talked about the role of a manager. It is not to be involved in everything the team does. It is to provide the physical and intellectual tools, conditions, and support that allow people to do their best work — and increasingly solve problems without needing the manager to step in.
I told him that constantly running from one emergency to another might look like commitment, but it can also be a sign of a system that has become too dependent on the manager.
Every intervention may solve today’s problem. But if it also teaches people to wait for the manager, it helps create tomorrow’s.
The last time I saw him, I asked the same question:
“Do you have a minute?”
This time he smiled.
“Thanks to you, I have all the time you need.”