If You Want It Done Right, You Don't Have to Do It Yourself!. Donna M. Genett

jokes, going home on time.

      Sadly, James’s department was getting farther and farther behind. They weren’t meeting their goals. James’s boss was worried and vigilant, James’s employees were restless and grumbling, James’s family was, well, restless and grumbling, too.

      James hadn’t been feeling too well either. Sometimes his neck hurt or his head ached, and he was beginning to feel hopeless about keeping up with Jones.

      It didn’t seem fair. Like his cousin, James had always been a top performer. When he had only himself to worry about on the job, he could do anything he set his mind to. Now that he was a manager, not only did he have to get his own work done, he also had to see that his people got theirs done. The work had to be kept up to company standards, too. If it wasn’t, he had to deal with that. And, it was getting harder to get his people to cooperate. They didn’t seem to know what to do. When they did, it took them too long.

      The additional workload of a manager seemed tremendous. He had reports to write and other reports to evaluate. Memos and professional journals to read. Meetings to attend. On top of all this, he had to do administrative things—performance reviews, hiring, firing, and, more times than he liked to think about, disciplining.

      James had gotten wind of several complaints, mostly about his never being available, but also some that he lost his temper too easily. But, with his workload such as it was, he had little time to spend out on the floor and he was often so tired and so stressed that he would forget to use tact.

      His boss said he should delegate more, yet every time James tried to pass some of his burden along to others, he ended up with more work to do, not less. The job wouldn’t get done right, and it would fall to James to clean up the resulting mess.

      James had always believed that, as his dad used to say, If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself. But now, he was reconsidering the wisdom of this cowboy-like self-reliance. What happens when you can’t do it all yourself? When the job is so big it requires several, perhaps even many, people?

      He had begun to wonder if the money that came with the promotion was worth the price he and his family were paying. Still, he didn’t want to lose the income or the opportunity. He felt paralyzed.

      In his car driving home late one night, after again missing dinner with his family because of problems at work, James came to a conclusion. He had to end his paralysis and do something. Something different. Perhaps even something he’d never done before. Perhaps several things.