We were at Lubowa today.
A good friend of mine currently heads a great organisation in town. His organization is the Federation of Uganda Employers. He does many things because of this role and acumen. For the purpose of this write up, I will focus on his write ups in the New Vision news paper. His write ups are published every Monday.I read a news paper every day. I have something or someone to look up to daily. When I was growing up, I looked up to Mr Ras , Old Fox (never mind that some of it was adult content) and Ekanya. Now I look up to other things. I never want to miss Muwonge C.W Magembe, my friend Mer Douglas Opio and others.
In one of his recent pieces Mr Opio wrote about the importance of building strong teams at a workplace. It was a good read. It made me remember an incident that happened years ago.
I will be brief with the story. I will write it simply and plainly. Then I will return with the principles, theory and moral lessons in another session.
One time, I worked under a very good supervisor. I say good because he had a way of delivering through us his team. He equally worked hard and was dependable.You could count on him. He could stand by his word by all standards. At one time he instructed me to do something which backfired. He stood by his instruction and defended me including on media. He apologised for my mistake. He gave me confidence.
One of the key things that our division did for the organisation was to organise events. So one time we had a big event to organise. As was nature of my supervisor, he invited me to his office and requested me to lead the rest of the team in organising this. We were to launch a new project at a hotel facility. After our meeting, I invited our team of 20 people and briefed them. We agreed to share tasks and created departments. The departments included branding and decoration, catering, publicity, transport, security venue preparation etc. I requested team members to volunteer to head the departments. The team approved volunteer heads of the departments. Each department would meet and present a detail on how and a workable budget for their tasks. We had a general budget which was shared with the volunteer heads.
At our next meeting, all departments presented except the transport department. The volunteer head explained that he was yet to meet the head driver of the organisation to sort the detail. Infact all Members agreed that we did not have to waste time discussion transport after all the organisation had many cars. So departmental budgets were passed by the meeting except that of transport and the one of branding and decoration which was deemed on a higher side. The meeting however passed the artwork of the brading and decoration after numerous changes. The lady incharge of decoration was asked to venture out for a more manageable budget. At the next meeting, the transport department was still not ready with a detail and budget. The lady in charge did not attend the meeting. On phone, she informed everyone that the price for the decoration had been revised and she would hand in the new costs on Monday the following week.
By nature of my work at that organisation, I had looks of engagements. two day to the event, we had the last meeting. All departments had received money for their activities except the two. Everything else was sorted except the two departments. The departments of Brading and decoration plus transport.
To cut the long story short, the team worked around the clock to sort out the branding and the decoration plus the transport. The event was very successful but the team was disjointed. Team members felt let down by two leaders. The evaluation meeting was full of negative energy instead of praise.
Please note that the top leadership of the organization was extremely impressed by my team. But my team was not happy with me. They wanted me to push for the punishment of my two colleagues. how do you have people punished when the team has performed excellently ?
I will not let you know how this ended but it did. Like all things do. we danced and hugged at the party offered by the organisation head to thank us for a job well done.
In session 2, we will delve into real serious stuff. What does it mean to be a dependable team player ?
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