Help me help you
Update on this entry…
The struggle. Again…
Got an earful about one of my workers from a senior person today.
Said person has been around for a while, but has been a habitual ball dropper. Before I thought it was because they weren’t sure how to do things…made sure to train everyone so they had the same tools and approaches.
Then I thought maybe they didn’t feel empowered to do things…put them on a project where you can do what you need to do as they have the budget to experiment more than others.
Then I gave them help so they had additional hands to do things…
Fail…fail…fail…
They volunteered to help with some proposal work….
Failed…didn’t deliver…failed…
Luck ran up on one contract when leadership got wind of the fails…(that last entry)I moved them to a smaller contract with a smaller team and better defined scope to help focus them.
Failed…didn’t deliver…failed.
Hence the earful this morning. Another senior leader was done with them and ready to fire them. They were PISSED!
I cannot emphasize this enough (from my twitter rant/psa) :
Do not oversell your skills. Tred carefully when you’re exposed to people who can have a huge impact on your career…
You don’t get a lot of chances w/ people who don’t work with you much.
And the people who would endorse you cannot do so because you’re nice and they like you as a person.
You need to be accountable, timely, deliver what you say you can do and let people know if you can’t so others can make arrangements.
You’re not just hurting yourself when you drop the ball. You’re hurting the people who endorsed you, the capability you represent, your team…
And not on some team kumbaya stuff, on some now your team has to arrange things to pick up the work you dropped the ball on.
The capability champions have to assure potential collabs that your example isn’t typical of the support they would get…
Your endorsers’ judgment/accountability is now questioned for recommending someone who doesn’t follow through and do good work.
When the people who knew you as a person are no longer around, your work has to stand on its own. Be aware and beware.
I can’t help them anymore. It’s been several years…and way more ball drops than the ones I mentioned here.
Drive on…
