Are you stupid?

In my role as Chairman/CEO I moved completely away from oversight of day to day operations some time ago. I have entrusted capable people to perform those duties in my stead. In this role sometimes it is frustrating beyond measure to watch our employees perform their duties. I like things done “my” way and unfortunately for my psyche that is not always the case. I have entrusted others to run the company and they run some things “their” way and not particularly my way.

One thing that is particularly frustrating is when managers come to me and ask for advice about a matter and I spend significant time explaining how to address it and then watch as they go out and do just the opposite of what I advised them to do. In the old days had they committed such an offense, they would have been summoned to my office and would have either left with head hanging low and walking with a considerable limp rubbing their posterior, or would be escorted to gather their personal items and then exit the building.

Nowadays unless it is a major issue I allow managers the freedom to go against my advice and try it their own way. It is without question the most frustrating part of my job, because I know from experience that they are going to make a big mistake and soon they will realize it. I remember one example was a young manager came to me and asked about promoting someone into a position that in my opinion was far beyond that person’s ability. I went to great lengths to tell them that I thought it would be a mistake and I detailed the reasons for quite some time. The manager went to great lengths to explain to me what amounted to be in essence that I did not know what I was talking about and the person was right for the job.

At the end of the meeting I told the person that I had hired them to perform the job and that I was not going to order them to pass this person up for this particular job. In the end forming a team of professionals was important to success and I was not going to mandate that this person be excluded from consideration. If I did, I would not be allowing them to do their job and I would in essence be the manager and not them. I did however look this person right dead square in the eye and told them again that I thought it would be a grievous mistake to put this person in that position.

Well as you have probably guessed the manager promptly ignored my advice and put the person in the position. To me it was like seeing a train heading for a wreck and just waiting for it to happen. It happened of course just a few months later and when I heard about it I went to this manager’s office. I saw the look of dread in the manager’s eyes as I walked into the office, shut the door and settled into a chair across from this person. The manager immediately blurted out, “Go ahead and say it, I know you are dying to say I told you so.”

“I told you so”, I coldly said.

I made my point about this manager ignoring my wise advice. I went over why I advised against this person and how everything that I predicted about the situation had indeed happened and I tried my utmost to make this person feel as bad as I could for quite some time and then prepared to leave. The manager said, “You love this, don’t you?” I told them that nothing could be further from the truth and that what I would have “loved” was for him to have taken my advice and put the right person in the job and not waste time and money for the company. Unfortunately he had to learn the hard way and the only positive from this sordid mess was that this lesson, (particularly after my little discussion with him after it went bad), would not soon be forgotten or repeated, and they would ultimately be a better manager because of it.

I was thinking that this is the way we are about the Bible. God lays out exactly what we need to do in order to have success in life in the Bible and even burns it into our own conscience; however we often ignore it and the results are often disastrous. God sees the train wreck in our life coming, but He stands aside and allows it to happen, because we are the ones that ultimately decide on our direction. I’m sure God gets no pleasure in seeing us ignore the advice in the Bible and end up in a mess. He has however decided not to create a bunch of robots that must do exactly what He orders us to do. Instead we have a free will. We have the freedom to have a train wreck of our own making. When it happens He is there to help pick up the pieces and hopefully we will use lessons learned to avoid a similar occurrence. If we are stubborn and rebellious, we may have many repeat instances and sink very low in order to finally understand. Sometimes we can even die as a result of our disobedience. Drinking to excess and then driving comes to mind.

My hope for all of our managers is that they will be quick learners and hopefully reach a point whereby they value advice from several sources and utilize it to avoid disaster. I also hope that they will utilize the Bible daily as their main source of counseling. Many problems in life could be avoided entirely if we would just read the Bible and do as it instructs; Proverbs is a great book to start

Proverbs 12:1
Whoever loves instruction
loves knowledge,
But he who hates correction is
stupid.