Rattled Nerves

"It would help you to read it, settle your nerves, calm you down a bit", she said as we made our way down the M50 in the pouring rain. She was right, of course, but I think I need the adrenalin rush of living close to the edge all the time. Otherwise I’d never do anything. And I can’t bear wasting time – my time, that is – hanging around, waiting for things to happen. If there’s any free time going I want it to be experienced while my feet are up; not standing upon another’s fancy. But still, she may have a point and perhaps I should get myself a copy. After all, what’s my hurry? I can still hear my father’s voice as he often used to say, "When God made time, he made lots of it!"

We sped away from another two-day session in Mullingar where we were further enlightened on how to tackle difficult problems, from the perspective of an effective manager. But between you, me and the wall, there was one particular area that everyone failed dramatically to address: how do you deal with a person in the workplace who has an unacceptable level of personal hygiene? Imagine, if you will, our group in role-play: Me, as manager, and Blue Eyes giving an Oscar winning performance as the wronged employee giving me such a hard time. I found myself backtracking, sidestepping the issue, squirming in my seat, while she ate the face off me, threatened me with her union rep, and said that really she had no idea what I was talking about. Then it was Desperate Dan’s turn. He tried "desperately" to control Blue Eyes while she tore strips off him, too: "Sure the aftershave you’re wearing stinks the place out. I don’t know how you’ve got the nerve to complain about me!" In the end, after we collapsed with laughter and realised how utterly impossible such a situation would be for such a hapless manager, Blue Eyes came up with a solution: Decide on a code of conduct with input from all concerned, discuss, come to agreement, make sure everyone has a copy and in the event of an issue, refer to the code. And the award for best actress goes to...

Perhaps every workplace should have a copy of Self Help for Your Nerves by Claire Weekes. First published in 1972, it is still recommended by doctors today as a useful tool in dealing with anxiety disorders. This Australian GP avoided the term 'nervous breakdown' as she felt it to be unscientific. Instead she came up with "nervous illness" and concentrated on three areas that she decided were central to the issue: sensitization, bewilderment and fear. She based her work on personal experience of nervous illness and that of her patients and was greatly respected in her chosen field.

My driver, who was suffering from a bout of nerves brought on by watching Thierry Henry’s illegal handling of the ball in the Ireland/France game, drove home from Mullingar fuming. She hadn’t slept the previous night and had probably been replaying the disaster in her head as she tossed and turned in her King-size bed. I can just imagine her, smoke coming out of her ears, reaching for her copy of Self Help for Your Nerves to throw at the television as the awful events of the match are shown again and again in repeats and replays. But she’ll have to pull herself together by tomorrow morning and turn back into an effective manager whose main concern is for the well being and welfare of her staff – however odoriferous!

Humpty Dumpty Revisited

I’ve been away – two days and one night – in Mullingar on an Essential Management Skills course designed to help one become an effective manager. I’m not a manager so what, you might reasonably ask, was I doing there? Well, I’m a volunteer in an organisation that values education and I always leap at any chance to learn something new. So the manager and I packed our bags and headed off to a very pleasant hotel in the County of Westmeath which somewhat cushioned the blow of having to spend two whole days in a classroom environment. So, what did I learn?

Well I have always prided myself as being a creative thinker but I discovered quite quickly that I "sometimes lack the capacity to generate new ideas, or fail to capitalise on those that are generated by your team." Ok, ok, so I don’t have a team to be creative with in my work environment but there are plenty of other instances where I had presume I was being creative and innovative. Back to the drawing board...

We had a team building exercise where our two groups of three had to "develop a fail-safe system to devise packaging for an egg which was to then be dropped from a height of six feet onto a hard surface". The time frame was 20 minutes with a budget of €7,000. The materials provided were: drinking straws €280 each, toothpicks €165 each, string €155 per inch and masking tape €120 per inch. Our tools were a scissors and ruler. Suffice it to say that my team went wildly over budget and we didn’t even win. Think about it and if anyone wants to know, I’ll fill you in on the lengths we went to fail, and the innovative and imaginative ideas the other team devised to win, with but a tiny dent in their raw egg after its dramatic fall to earth. Our egg hadn’t a cat’s chance in hell of survival. We had, mistakenly, pinned our hopes on the bouncy quality of chopped up pieces of plastic straws bound together with expensive inches of masking tape. The manager with whom I shared this devastating experience is still sulking.

The good news is that I am a "Shaper: full of nervous energy, emotional, compulsive, impatient and easily frustrated but useful when a team needs a leader to galvanise and push people into action. Shapers are often seen as arrogant and abrasive and have a tendency to steamroller other members of the team, but they do make things happen." I can live with that.

Our facilitator mentioned, more than once, the business book, Understanding Organizations by Charles Handy that has become a classic on the key concepts of concern to all managers. Handy discusses the culture, motivation, leadership, power, role-playing and working in groups and how managers can translate these concepts into effective management tools. All organisations need to select, develop and reward their people; to structure and design their work; to resolve political conflicts; to lay down guidelines for their managers; and to plan for the future. Understanding Organizations is presented in an accessible manner, filled with examples and metaphors that make each concept easy to understand and should be a must on the reading list of anyone who is put in charge of a group of people.

Anyway, I’m back, back to my waiterless home with no swimming pool, no Jacuzzi, and no hope of a three-course meal at the end of a tiring day’s work. Invigorated, however, re-energised and ready to put some of my new found skills to good use on an unsuspecting group of fellow volunteers who won’t know what hit them cause this time round I’m going to be subtle and innovative. Watch this space!

Which reminds me, have you heard how a children’s programme on the BBC last week changed the ending of the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme? It seems that it’s more politically correct to "Make Humpty Happy" again rather than have the poor fellow broken to smithereens after his accidental fall from that dangerous wall. Had young Humpty the good fortune to have been wrapped in protective clothing by the A Team in Mullingar he might have survived, with but a dent to his pride, to live another day.