This post has come about because for the first time since I’ve been managing Thai’s here Bangkok, I made the mistake of loosing my cool. Yesterday we were meant to be launching our new project and as working hours come to a close on Monday, everyone knew we were behind. We were not going to make it without everyone staying on and completing the few remaining tasks we had. I asked my staff if they could stay on and when each said they couldn’t, I lost it. At the time I was angry and thought they just didn’t care.
I was seriously wrong and it’s a mistake I’m trying to mend.
I was chatting to one member of my team last night about the incident on chat and it became clear where the problem lye from this one line he wrote: “everyone’s got life after work”
Bingo. From all of the pressure I had forgot to understand that they are just staff, cool staff that I enjoy working with, but at the end of the day they work for me during set hours to get a paycheck at the end of the month.
Every entrepreneur (successful or non successful – it doesn’t matter) I know live, eat and shit work – they would all happily be woken up in the middle of the night if it meant securing a new deal, or staying up to the late hours of the morning every night working on their new start up. Understandably so, staff don’t feel the same way.
I’ll be honest, right now I wish I had partners who could share the love, work, effort, risk and stress with me.
I’ve never felt the same way as I do about this new project from all the other projects I’ve worked on. I really do believe in it. I’ve even put Juice Mag up for sale (along with selling near enough every possession I own) so we can invest and solely concentrate on this new project. I believe it’s going to work out, and the service we are providing will benefit a lot of people.
So, what can I learn from this?
It will differ from me to you, but looking back it perhaps would have been better to start this new project with partners rather than staff, or with partners and staff. When I say partners, I mean entrepreneurs that share the same vision and excitement as the other partners, who have all have an equal stake in the company and who face loosing the same..
I agree with you Chris I run into the same issues!
I find it frustrating when colleagues cannot keep up with me, or it takes forever for someone to get back to me. Sometimes it just one thing afer another that delays projects.
Thats just the way it is sometimes with projects.
I would happily work through the night and all hours, but sometimes in life others dont share that same vision.
However having said that, working on projects with people who do share the same passion, vision and have the stamina to work all hours is the greatest thing! Theres alot more excitment and you tend to get alot more out of the project too.
Stick with employee’s mate. Trust me, this is knowledge that has cost me a great deal to learn. Employee’s are shit, so are partners. You can sack employees, you have to buy out partners.
Learning to manage people well takes a lifetime, and you doing it the hard way with Thai’s. A sincere apology and a bit of dinner will sort em out. And it wont have done any lasting harm, if anything it may well work out quite well given a week or two
Big smile. Im proud of ya!
I believe there’s life after work for everyone, whether you’re an entrepreneur, company employee or a cleaner. But where and when it starts is different from one person to another. Of course, it’s not wrong to want to work all the time – great, it benefits the company and you get to make extra money. Likewise, it’s not wrong to only want to work during set hours – it’s your every right.
The problem here is not how long you work but rather how productive you are. Working longer hours doesn’t necessarily mean you are more productive. In fact, it’s been proved in real life time and time again that too long working hours tend to bog employees down, reduce their productivity and sometimes even lead to injuries and sickness.
But productivity is not the same thing as effort. Some people put in extra effort but their productivity is still below par. Others might only be prepared to put in what is normally required but they deliver. The worst are those with little effort and failure to deliver.
Naturally so, some entrepreneurs value employee productivity more while many believe effort and commitment is what most matters. Nobody is right or wrong here. That is the bottom line.
It’s like everything else in this world. Nothing is right or wrong but only ‘thinking’ makes it so. For example, killing someone is deemed illegal, immoral but some people have got away with it because they did it to defend themselves etc.
I don’t want to philosophise about anything here but at the end of the day people are different, so are their priorities. If you know you want extra help from someone at the time when it might not be too convenient for them, make arrangements with them in advance. Likewise, if someone asks you for help and you know you’re in the position help out, you should certainly give them a hand. If not, explain to them as to why and they will understand you.
Working with staff is surely hard but you need to understand their life too. They are only working for you for the paycheck, they are not your partners and wont be interested on how much you make from their work.