40 WESTERN PALLET
Right People, Right Seats
Picture this: It’s Wednesday morning, 7 a.m., and I sit down with my favorite Superman mug in my home office to check my inbox. My phone buzzes on the desk next to me.
It’s a text from Paula, the president of a small distribution business that I’ve been working with for a few months, helping them build a results-oriented team culture. It has been an interesting ride, to say the least, as Paula inherited somewhat of a mess from her predecessor, who had treated that business more like an after-work hobby.
But that’s not her. She is highly driven and deeply invested in building a healthy, high-impact culture that endures.
The blue bubble read, “Help! I’m at my wits’ end with Brenden. Coffee?”
I replied, “Sure. I’m free this morning. How about the usual spot at 9?”
She added a quick thumbs-up to my message and that was that.
I knew exactly what she meant. This was not the first time our talks had revolved around Brenden. He was the VP of Ops and a key player on Paula’s executive team.
The trouble with Brenden wasn’t the usual stuff: He was sharp, very skilled, well put together, professional, likable—you name it.
No. His problem was that he was a highly capable “technician” who had been put into a “manager” role. He lived to conquer tasks, to check boxes. And he was darn good at it.
But Paula needed someone in that role who was focused on RESULTS, someone who was proactive in thinking past the immediate task on their list, someone who could see what the “big picture good” looked like and then go after it with passion. She also needed someone who could coach and build a team that would follow suit.
I was sitting on the patio at my favorite little Germantown coffee shop over by the river when she walked up.
Skipping the formalities and sitting down, she looked at me with exasperation on her face.
“What do I do?”
I knew her commitment to her people. I knew her commitment, as a person of faith, to do the right thing—the loving thing. I knew that she had tried working with him, had tried helping him see the bigger picture, had tried getting him to look past accomplishing the immediate task, time and time again… to no avail.
Okay. Time for the truth, inconvenient as it may be.
Brenden had originally been hired as a project manager, a role that was well suited to his gifts and wiring. But that wasn’t the role he was in any longer, and ironically the qualities that made him an asset as a project manager were making him a liability as a VP.
The answer to her exasperated question was clear: “Alright. Let’s be honest. Brenden isn’t a bad fit for the company. He is actually a good one. But he seems to be a bad fit for the role. He is in the wrong seat. And he’ll continue to be a liability if you allow him to stay in it.”