A Tale of TWO MANAGERS By Steve Coscia
L
ast year, two clients shared a customer service management issue. Both managers were long term employees with lots of technical knowledge which made them appear indispensable to the company owners. As the consultant, I had assessed that both customer service managers were a corporate liability. In varying degrees, they lacked the people skills, flexibility and operational management acumen to run customer service. Perhaps the asset which was most deficient was the desire to learn and apply something new. Both managers resisted change. The company owners seemed either in denial or they were naïve to what was really happening. After consultation and training I concluded that both managers should be replaced. Neither company owner were happy with my conclusion. They both urged me to find a way to make things work out. I reaffirmed to both company owners that management changes are necessary sometimes, and this was one of those times. Company ‘A’ terminated their customer service manager and Company ‘B’ did not. Months later, the owner at Company A enthusiastically shared with me that their customer service department was
24
OHIO PHC CONTRACTOR • Volume 2015, Issue 3
much more productive, teamwork and cooperation was the best it had been in years, and customer retention was up. The service department was infused with vigor, vitality and a renewed sense of service excellence. He confessed that he had no idea one person could be stifling so many latent assets. In addition, he also learned that the front line service reps didn’t like the customer service manager, but were too afraid to say anything. The owner learned about this afterwards when employees thanked him for making the change. Company owner A also confessed that his fear about the old manager’s indispensability was groundless. The news about Company B was less positive. The company owner shared that business was stagnant and he blamed it on the economy. I listened empathetically, but I knew what was really going on. Company Owner B was still in denial about his customer service manager’s indispensability. There was an attrition factor at work in Company B. The attrition factor validates the belief that things can go either forward or backward, but they never stay the same. Therefore, Company B’s false belief that doing nothing would result in unchanged service was incorrect. Terminating employees, especially managers, requires lots of grit along with the help of HR personnel to avert legal issues, but when it’s necessary - it’s necessary. An errant employee with a bad attitude, who negatively affects other employees, becomes a cancer which spreads