The story always has a similar thread; Something bad happens and the person in charge gets the AXE. It can be a captain of a ship, a Naval Secretary, a city manager, a 911 operator, or even some poor teacher. Rarely is there a direct error made by the person that gets the forced job change.
Recently, a 911 operator did make a clerical error that resulted in a death. This is the exception.
A clerical error is just that ...an error, someone actually made a mistake. Most of the time the Captain of the Aircraft Carrier gets the axe because of a fire on the ship but he never even saw the fire. Or, the Air Force Generals that lost their jobs because some nuke triggers got shipped incorrectly ....no one even got hurt. When an accident happens the world at large requires a firing of somebody...that's just the way it goes. And, I think , in most cases it is a serious mistake.
The person that gets fired usually has had a great career (or how else would they become a holder of such a high office or position) and they readily take the hit because they are team players. Why fire someone that has now seen what can happen when the ball gets dropped? This accident or mistake that happened is really a very valuable learning experience. So a valuable leader gets fired and put out to pasture and becomes a wasted talent , a wasted talent that now would be a better leader because of the realization of error made.
The reason the firing takes place is because of a lack of intestinal fortitude on the part of the person doing the firing. If they had some true grit they would look the public in the eye and say that they realize that a serious mistake has been made, it won't happen again and lets move on.
Stop wasting valuable talent, recognize that the value of most organizations is really with the people they employ.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment