Motivational

Rule 85: Identify the people who count

December 12, 2016

King of World Music and Nigeria’s Juju Music exponent, King Sunny Ade and Nigeria’s City People Magazine Publisher, Dr. Seye Kehinde

I
once made a bad mistake – well, I’ve probably made lots, but this one is
relevant and sticks in my mind. I worked
for a company and we had a maintenance man.
At the end of each day, we wrote in the maintenance book anything that
needed doing, such as changing light bulbs, clearing blocked loos and Harry would do it. Mending broken chairs that sort of
thing. We had two offices and I used to
get quite cross that Harry seemed to spend more time down
at the other branch than at our place. Harry
was never anywhere to be found.

My
notes in the maintenance book grew terse and sharper, but it didn’t seem to do
any good. I would have rollicked Harry
in person if ever I’d have been able to find him. He came in after we had gone home and did the
maintenance work in the evenings. The
other office was getting all their repairs done and we were getting nothing
done. It was intolerable and I resolved
one evening to wait for Harry.

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“I’ve worked for
companies where it was the cashier, the MD’s
driver, the accountant and the canteen chef who had the juice. Invariably, it took some time to identify
these people”.

Harry didn’t show, so I went over to the other
office. There was Harry having coffee with the big boss, my regional
director. I steamed in – ‘what the devil do you think you’re doing? I need you over at the place doing
maintenance, not sitting here drinking coffee!’ Bad mistake.
Several bad mistakes:

·
You
don’t bawl someone out for drinking coffee when they were on an official
‘tea-break’

·
You
don’t bawl someone out for drinking coffee when they have been invited to do so
by the regional director.

·
You
don’t bawl someone out in front of your regional director without first
checking all the salient facts with them.

·
You
do things properly – go through the appropriate channels and don’t hide in wait
for an errant worker.

·
You
always identify the people who count – in this case, Harry.

Why
did Harry count? Because he was my
regional director’s father-in-law. He had juice and power and influence that I
could only dream of. He was working at
the other office because he had been told to by his son-in-law. As I said, bad
mistake.

I’ve
worked for companies where it was the cashier, the MD’s driver, the
accountant and the canteen chef who had the juice. Invariably, it took some time to identify
these people. They all held some trump
card which either gave them access to a senior boss, or some hold over them
such as being a relative. Find them, know them.

(Excerpts from THE
RULES OF WORK by Richard Templer Read “How to be on the right side of people who counts” from The Rules tomorrow on Asabeafrika)

Rule-to-Work Series