Managers must stop delegating if they cannot train
As a manager, a key part of the job requires developing your people. I recall, the time my son began learning to walk. There was no showing him how to do it only once, and going away expecting him to start walking. No, my wife and I supported him, held him up to steady his balance, and encouraged him when he wobbled his first few steps. We hovered around to catch him when he stumbled and patiently gave him the space and time to practice. And yes, we would all the time cheer him on… even when he tired, stopped and cried. Once he made progress and was able to confidently walk carefully, our anxiety levels near disappeared.
A long time ago, during my internship at the Hotel Stuttgart International, I was assigned to work for six weeks at cost controls. At about the same time, another person was hired, and he sat with the departing cost controls employee during her last week on the job. As the week passed, the new hire took over. The manager in charge simply assumed that the employee who left, had properly trained the person hired to replace her. For the next few weeks, the new replacement struggled, and for good reasons. Why?
Firstly, the person who was leaving had no inclination for training. Secondly, even if she had, there was no motivation (prize) to train him well. Thirdly, she neglected to brief the new guy on some key tasks – either she forgot when her mind was on her next job; or she was getting back at the hotel for not recognising her worth. Who knows?
Two things were for sure. The Manager had long stopped training. Instead he delegated it to his staff – in this instance to someone who was leaving the hotel. He believed delegation was teaching. His dereliction of a key part of his job meant there were many mistakes made in those few weeks. For me, it was tough at the beginning because in his struggles, the new guy had no time to teach me anything. But the silver lining was that in the process of his re-learning from not doing things as expected, I acquired a lot of knowledge by merely observing. Mis-steps, when investigated, reveal how they occurred and one learns from that on how to avoid repeating them in future.
The problem becomes acute when the manager or supervisor him/herself is incapable of training. Some can handle simple tasks but are all at sea with the complex issues. The Manager in my related-incident was one. His system of supervision was uninspiring. He would spot a problem, yell at whoever he saw first .(happened to me many times) and when told by the person that he/she had nothing to do with the problem, would calm down and yell at someone else to ‘fix it’.
Shafeek Wahab –Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier
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