A Day In The Life

by Scott AiritamPresident, Scott Airitam's Leadership Systems, LLC

Picture yourself as the head of a tech firm. You've got your MBA and you've put some skins on the wall. Your accomplishments are well recorded. And you see many more in front of you. You are a hard driver, rarely stopping along the way to celebrate, to rest, or to enjoy the ride. Your life is about accomplishing things.

Now, picture one of your VP's saying that you should talk to this guy, Scott Airitam. Evidently, he has some really good training that let's companies accomplish more together and leaves people with a true sense of loyalty and commitment to the organization.

Your first question is what? "How much does this cost?" The VP says he's not sure, but let's bring Scott in and talk to him--at least that part is free. So, as not to be a complete jerk, you say, "sure."

This Scott guy comes in asks a bunch of questions. Some of them make you mad because his questions come with the assumption that there is something that could improve about the company. He's doing a needs assessment right here in front of you. The nerve of that guy! He leaves with the promise to put a few options for what he could do for the company in a proposal and have this to you tomorrow. Tomorrow? What, does this guy not have anything else to do?

Later that day, you are thinking about some of the things Scott said. Some of it was surprisingly insightful for someone that hasn't worked here. Too bad he owns a company and isn't looking for a job. Nevertheless, his services are probably going to be expensive, and, you have to save all of your training and development budget for technical training for your people. After all, it's the sales force and production work that really pay the bills around here. Not some psychobabble training about the "people-side" of business. So, you put Scott out of your mind and work until 9pm that night, and, in spite of yourself, you do peek at who leaves at five and who stays late. A couple of your managers stay later than you. You remind yourself to mention to their VP what a great job they are doing. See, you have people skills!

You arrive back at work at 7am. You were tired before your eyes completely opened, but that is what coffee is for. The company depends on you to survive. Yes, you make a mental note of what time certain people arrive for work. We'll see how many hours they put in today. By 9:30am, you have an email from Scott. A proposal. You go to open it, but before you are able to do so, your assistant tells you that Scott is on the line. What, did he send the thing by mistake and now, unable to recall it, he's calling you?

You get him on the line and he wants to walk through the proposal with you--like you cannot read. Wow, this thing is pretty comprehensive both as a potential contract and as an action plan! Unexpected.

Ugh. All three options require you to take part in the training sessions. Is he nuts? Why would he blatantly offend you by saying that you need work. He must really NOT want to work with you. Wait, he's saying that you should take the sessions as a way to model how important you think they are to the organization. You do not have time for this. This Scott guy doesn't know how many hours you already put in. He's suggesting courses that teach better leadership skills, how to handle conflict effectively, hiring right the first time, the value of diversity, performance management, and some stuff about culture like internal customer service, cooperation and collaboration, and the use of power. Interesting stuff...and according to him, the company would be more efficient. You wouldn't have thought about a bunch of this stuff for your organization because, you are already doing it, right? But, there are definitely some poor conflict management skills around here. Not sure about the hiring session, though, your management is doing a good job with HR's help, right? Performance management could be helpful--you remember some of that stuff from college, but you really have just been winging it. Hmmm. And this culture stuff is pretty cool. And he's claiming it will make our culture and our people a competitive advantage over the competition.

But, let's see what he's charging. Whoa. Didn't expect that. That's a large chunk out of our training budget to do what he's suggesting, and we still need the tech training. You could move some stuff around in the budget and do this, but do you?