Don't Squash A Flea With An Elephant!

Effective management and managers are hard to find. Most people are not naturally born managers. What we must do is learn how to manage people and events. We can learn a lot by watching what others do that works or doesn't work.

I have learned a lot from managers who exhibited very poor management or people skills. I remember one manager who had a bad reputation in almost every aspect of his relationship with the people who worked for him. People feared him. He often chewed people out right in front of others. People hated him. He often cursed people out for not doing what he thought they should be doing. People hated him. This manager often promoted people who would do crooked things that benefited him personally, yet cost the company he was working for hundreds of thousands of dollars and possibly even into the millions. I hated him - but I learned to watch this negative example of what not to do when managing people. Watch people who are mangers and learn not to make the same mistakes they make.

The title of this article seems to have nothing to do with the art of management. That is, until you look at an example of someone taking an extreme measure to correct a minor problem. This was illustrated to me one day when the company moved that hated manager to another smaller unit. They then installed a new manager who seemed to have much better interpersonal skills. However, he often sqaushed fleas with an elephant. What do I mean by this?

If you want to kill fleas on a dog, what do you do? Well, you first make sure that it is fleas that you are trying to kill so that you use the right solution. Next you use enough of the solution to kill the fleas but not the dog. If you have an elephant handy you can try killing the fleas with the said elephant, however, the dog is not going to appreciate having this monster stepping on him to kill his fleas. It probably would not kill the fleas and it would most likely kill the dog.

Here is what I am talking about in terms of management. The new manager who took the reins of the store where I worked (you remember, he replaced the hated manager) decided he would call his wife each day before he left work to let her know that he was on his way home. He always left at about 5:30 or 5:45. One day he picked up the phone and dialed 9 to get an outside line. He was unable to get an outside line. It seemed that all of the outgoing lines were busy. He tried several times to get his call through. He met with no success. He left frustrated.

The next day he told the operations manager to have access to all the outside lines blocked. To make a call he wanted the store associates to call the store operator and for the operator to log all outgoing calls. There were over 100 phones in the store. Much of the time the associates were handling customers by phone to answer questions or transact business. This new manager thought they were making personal phone calls. Absolutley right, some were. Most were not!

Sales began to immediately decline. The new manager blamed the decrease on everything around. You name it, he blamed it at one time or another. Oh, except for the fact that nobody could conduct routine business by phone with out having to jump through hoops and have every call logged. After loosing millions of dollars in sales the company finally moved the new manager to another store. He had solved the percieved problem by taking a drastic measure to fix a problem but he killed the sales in the store in the process. I developed my "Don't squash fleas with an elephant!" management style right then and there!

What does this have to do with campus law enforcement? Well, anytime you are dealing with people you have to keep in mind that they are just dogs with fleas. If you come down with heavy handed techniques or approaches to problems you may be causing more harm than good. Take a look at your actions and see if there is a more subtle and, quite possibly, a better way to make necessary changes. They will probably be more efective in the long run.