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Ah-Ha! Moment – This winter I spent a lot of time on a VERY frustrating business transaction with one of our vendors. Why? Because I was dealing with local managers who had been put on a VERY tight leash by the out-of-state corporate office. The conditions were not just tight – from my perspective, they were totally UNREALISTIC.
The leash was so tight it caused local folks to lose all sense of perspective and common sense. They failed to pick up frustrations from me – and others like me, who were also dealing with the same company.
I'm not sure why the local folks never called corporate and said, "Boss, we know you wanted to hit these targets, yet our customers are pushing back and saying they're just not realistic. We think they have a point, so what we recommend is ... " Regardless, they never called. When I finally initiated a call to their corporate boss and explained the situation, he said, "Wow – it sounds like we really botched things with you." Then he made it right, and went one step further – he gave me his personal cell phone number, and asked me to deal directly with him from now on.
Lesson learned? Perhaps the local folks were they fearful for their jobs or worried about reprisals? Were they just not perceptive? Did they lack initiative? Perhaps the boss at corporate had not created an environment where the local managers could exercise some judgement and discretion? I’ll probably never know. I do know I saw what happens when a leash is too tight – it wasn't pretty, so I never want to do that to my staff and have it affect our clients.
