| One sign of
an inexperienced manager is their need to make rapid decisions on everything
coming before them. The more senior person purposefully lets less important
items fade into the background and concentrates his time on the important
issues at hand. When long term performance is evaluated, the career of
the person making fewer, better decisions moves more rapidly. Part of
this might be the corporate fear of making a mistake tends to reward the
more conservative approach, but on the other hand rapid decisions can
create errors requiring a lot of time and resources to correct.
An amusing story illustrates this. It concerns two bulls, a young one
and an old one, rounding a hill and below them on the other side of
the fence were a herd of heifers. The young bull began to paw and snort
and said to the older one, "Come on Dad, lets run down the hill,
jump the fence and have us a cow". The old bull replied, "No
Son, we're going to walk down the hill, crawl under the fence and have
the whole herd!". |
© 2002 John D. Toellner
All Rights Reserved
Powered by JDToellner.com