Management

Ever since I was a little kid, I've wanted to be "in charge" and I have always assumed that managing people would be really fun and that having power would be really great. But managing people is not about being "in charge", giving people instruction or making sure they are doing their job, but mostly about making sure they feel valued, listened to and are happy. It usually requires me to bite my tongue, hold back my opinion/frustration and put a lot of effort into understanding their feelings in order to problem solve or motivate.

Business Manager J has been on edge lately. Every conversation I have with her I feel resistance and she seems to want to argue with everything I say. Everyone has a bad day or a bad week every now and then, but it seemed to be getting worse. It seemed like it wasn't a bad mood, but that something was going on.

And then there was the photocopy incident. I still feel annoyed every time I think about it. Twice a day at camp, we have praise and worship which includes lots of singing. We have a projector and power point slideshow which we use to project the lyrics for the kids. But there are several issues with this arrangement. In some seats, you can't see part of the lyrics. There are OFTEN technical difficulties with the projector or the computer and then we can't get the lyrics to show up. Some of the song lyrics are on two slides, so someone has to switch it midway through the song and the timing never seems to work out.

So we decided to print out the lyrics and make some song booklets to hand out. Simple solution. Perfect. So APDA typed and formatted it and I emailed it to J to print out. The copy machine in the office is much nicer than the one at camp and also has a very easy to use booklet making feature. It should have been a 10 minute project (at the most).

But her reply to my email was that she couldn't make the copies because we haven't paid the license fee for the copywrite. But here's the thing- we're talking about 12 songs that have been sung and passed down for years and years. We are a tiny camp. There's NO reason why we should pay for a license. I understood her point, but it was a risk I was willing to have our organization take.

So we emailed back and forth several times. My biggest frustration was that it's not her job to oversee the copies that I make. She doesn't get to have an opinion about every document I create. Her job is to make the copies. As the executive director, I am the person who decides what is best for the organization and I am responsible if there are consequences.

Ultimately, she refused to make the copies and I was livid. I've NEVER, not once in 4 years, ever had the attitude that "I'm in charge, you have to listen to me!" I have always treated her with respect, valued her opinion and created an environment of working together. But, to put it simply, I'm in charge and she needs to listen to me (for the record, I never phrased it like that when we were discussing this whole thing).

So between her growing attitude and my absolute rage over the copy incident, I decided I needed to drive 3 hours home to discuss the situation in person. I was not happy to drive 6 hours round trip and leave camp when there were kids and activity going on, but I felt like it was necessary.

On the phone with my mom and best friend, and talking to myself in the car, I was outraged and venting and shouted about how she had to listen to me and I was going to fire her if she kept fighting with me. Bosses on TV yell and make demands and don't listen, and I was feeling a bit like that cliche. But when I arrived and we sat down, my actual management style returned and I began the conversation with, "how are you doing? You seem stressed out. How can I support you?"

I listened, offered words of encouragement and affirmation and by the time we were finished with the conversation, her tone had changed completely. I ended up making the copies myself and we probably will never agree on that debate, but it wasn't a battle worth pursuing at the beginning of of a long, intense summer. I need her to do her job and I need to focus on camp. I need her to feel valued and motivated because when people feel good, they do good work. I'm still super annoyed by the whole thing, but being a manager doesn't mean I get to yell, it means that I have to set aside my feelings for the good of the situation.