The Cranky Middle Manger Show #25- Worst Managers on the Planet and Mind Tools
The Cranky Middle Manager Show #025 (MP3 13.5 MB 39.34 Min)
On this show we announce two winners of our Worst Manager on the Planet Contest as well as interview James Manktelow of Mind Tools.com…. it’s a long show this week but I think you’ll have some fun with it.
0:00 Welcome to a great show. We have the Quote of the Week, and interviews with two of our winners in the first ever “Worst Manager on the Planet Contest”.
2:00 Our Worst Manager on the Planet Contest. Pat Williams is from Longbranch, New Jersey. What is it about New Jersey and crummy bosses? Anyway, he sent in this entry:
Ok, so he was no Attilla, but “Bill” was the worst boss I’d ever seen. Our beloved Director of HR at Saint Elsewhere Medical Center had moved on and the Executive Search firm of “Sleazy, Robbum and Run” delivered “Bill” to our doorstep. I didnt know if had come to run our HR Department, or to sell used cars to the staff - either appeared as likely.
As most new bosses will do, “Bill” decided that we needed to revise a few policies…. ALL of them in fact. To facilitate this, he didnt work through the current policies and help us understand what should change. He instead handed over the ENTIRE HR policy manual from St. Hellhole Medical Center - we could just barely make out the logo under the 3 coats of whiteout this moron had used to disguise the documents as his own intellectual property.
During his tenure, “Bill” came up with a number of gems along the way… among his more shinging examples were:
- Taking a two week vacation which oddly coincided with the much anticipated and dreaded move of our department, and all 2,000 employee files to a new building. This was capped by his “generous” provision of lunch for us each day of the move - we had to pay of course, but we got “his” discount from the deli!
- During the BIG inspection that all hospitals go through, “Bill” decided that our HR staff should go through a leadership training exercise that included a two hour video on the leadership secrets of Sitting Bull! Ah yes, I can still recall the snickers of “Ta-Tonka” from out team as we burned the midnight oil making up for the hours lost on that little adventure!
- He was so supportive of his team while they worked on a major proposal for the company (in “supportive” I mean “contributed through his absence”), but made sure that when the proposal was presented to the CEO that he thanked all the people who provided the input to help him get this done.
As with all really poor bosses, karma caught up with “Bill”; he got an offer from St. Broken Heart to be their VP of HR….. so good to see the Peter Principle in operation.
Ok, so he didnt rape or pillage (not literally anyway), but he did loot the joint; we saw him lugging all of our HR Policy manuals out to his car on his last day. Coincidentally, we couldnt find a drop of whiteout in the office after that!
By the way, check out Pat’s blog at www.guerillahr.blogspot.com
Pat wins a copy of Active Words, Downloads from Magnatunes and a copy of my book, “A Philistine’s Journal, an Average Guy Tackles the Classics”.
8:36 Our big winner is Lorraine Lazzar of Sydney, Australia.. Here’s a short but sweet synopsis in her own words….
I use to work for a fascia and guttering company and the manger was Andrew A. I was the only female to 40+ men.
This man would come into the office each morning and say to staff either “good morning dickhead” or “have you been told today” (meaning-have you been told you’re an idiot today).
This business was in a series of demountable buildings and didn’t have toilet plumbing so they used portaloos and although they needed to be empty every 2 weeks – he ordered that the could not be empty for a minimum of 4 weeks because it saved him money but the smell was horrendous! (I by the way would go to the local McDonalds).
He was abusive to everyone and I only lasted a few months at this place and now 10+ years later I wonder why I even bothered to last that long!
Lorraine won not only all the prizes mentioned above, but the grand prize of Mind Manager 6 Software worth almost $800. Congratulations, or I’m sorry…. or whatever the correct response is for surviving this idiot.
Thanks for participating and a huge thanks to all our Sponsors. We can only assume your place in heaven is preserved and that you are all wonderful managers.
Thanks to my direct reports for not nominating me.
17:21 We finish up with an interview with James Manktelow who runs a great website called Mindtools.com. For those who love to learn, it’s full of very cool free stuff.
26:30 We look in depth at some tools on Practical Creativity….
36:00 Take a look at these other resources…
Better Management.com
American Management Association
Don’t let even the worst weasels get you down…..
February 24th, 2006 at 5:27 am
[...] Welcome to a “Real World” edition of the show. No consultants, no wanna-be gurus, just a real life manager and how he faces his job. You might remember Patrick Williams from the show when we talked to the winners of our “Worst Manager On the Planet” Contest. We talk about how HR can really work with managers, what companies are looking for and what keeps these folks up at night. [...]
September 18th, 2006 at 11:49 pm
[...] Mind Tools is a very cool site out of the UK. We spoke to its founder, James Manktelow back in December last year. Hear the episode here. It also talks about our first ever contest- The Worst Manager on the Planet. [...]