No Trust

Leveraging people’s experience and expertise is not just about people management skills, it’s also about valuing people and trusting them. One of my previous managers was so worried about managing her team properly she would count how many sheets of photocopier paper they were using, and would set an egg timer on the table for the reporting slots in meetings, so they all had exactly three minutes and no more. She was fixated on the small stuff. I used to play games with her, I would time myself to start a sentence on something really critical and important just as the egg timer reached the third minute. Then I would refuse to complete the sentence until next week’s meeting because my time was up.