I’m not very big on surprises. Years ago, for my 40th birthday, my wife threw me a surprise party. A lot of thought and planning went into it. Friends and family flew i
n from across the country. I had no clue what she was up to, so when I walked in the back door of our house only to be greeted by a throng of guests, I was truly surprised. My reaction wasn’t what my wife expected, and to this day, she swears she’ll never throw me another surprise party. Like I said, I don’t like surprises.
So if I don’t care for a surprise party that took a tremendous amount of forethought and work, how do you think I feel about surprises at work? I hate them! Surprises typically come because there has been a failure of some sort.
A failure to communicate
In the case of my surprise party, I believe a failure to communicate was the culprit. If my wife had only told me what she had planned, I wouldn’t have been surprised—and I would have been much more prepared to handle the situation!
Seriously, surprises often happen in the workplace because someone failed to communicate what was going on until it was too late to do anything about it. How many times as a manager have you had one of your people face a sticky situation and instead of letting you know about it he tries to fix it himself? He believes he can rectify the situation before it lands on your desk, so he remains quiet and goes to work trying to solve the problem. But when he can’t get the situation resolved, it comes to you as one big “Oops!”
“Sorry boss, but we have a big problem. I tried to fix it, but my approach didn’t work, and now we have a big mess on our hands.” There’s nothing I hate more than a surprise!
Had the employee communicated the issue instead of moving forward to fix it without informing me, we may have ended up in the same place, but it wouldn’t have been a surprise. I would have known about the situation as it developed and been fully informed. And if it still turned into a big problem, I would have felt like I owned it because I was involved in trying to solve it.
Of course, as a manager you must make sure you develop a culture that encourages open and honest communication—even when the news is negative. If you erupt every time someone delivers bad news, people quickly learn not to be the bearer of bad news. Look, if Pavlov’s dog can figure it out, the bright people you have working for you can, too. You must foster an environment where people can openly share both the good and the bad news.
As a manager, you also must understand that if the same person is constantly coming to you with “Sorry, but . . .,” you might have a performance problem to deal with. You don’t want to “kill the messenger,” but you can’t ignore a problem because you’re trying to encourage open communication. It’s a fine line you need to walk as a leader.
A failure to plan
I’m a big believer in planning your work and working your plan. If you’re getting too many surprises at work, you might want to check the plans of your people. Are they planning their work? Are there flaws in the plans they’re creating? Too many surprises means that the plans aren’t working, and there must be a reason for that.
Think about even a great surprise—you sold twice as much of a certain product as expected this month. Congratulations! But even in this success, there is a failure in your planning. It could be that this great news turns into a big nightmare as you discover that you don’t have the inventory to deliver the product to the customer. And it gets worse—by the time the product can be produced in the quantity you need, it will be too late for the customer. It’s a failure to plan on a number of fronts.
As a manager, you need to make sure you and your team are developing accurate and actionable plans. If you find too many exceptions to your plans, then your planning process is ineffective or the execution of your plans is flawed. The result is far too many surprises!
Surprises in the workplace aren’t a good thing. It typically means that either people are trying to hide things and therefore aren’t communicating openly and honestly or there’s a problem with planning. Whether you’re being surprised because of a failure to communicate or a failure to plan is for you to determine—but both are unacceptable.
It’s your job to get to the bottom of the problem, and you need to start by looking in the mirror. The first question you need to ask yourself is, “What am I doing that might be contributing to this problem?” Then look outward from yourself to determine what else might be causing the surprises. See if that doesn’t help you end those nasty surprises at work!