Managing to Make a Difference

Chapter 5Tolerate Undesirable Behaviors

If you are committed to cultivating positive relationships with people through accepting them as they are, you will inevitably run into conflicts between how people really are and how you wish they would be. What will you do in those instances? Where will you draw the line when accepting people as they are rubs you the wrong way?

The General Manager and the Director of Sales

I was teaching a seminar for a group of hotel general managers and one of them said, “Larry, help me apply what you're talking about to my director of sales. She is notoriously late to all meetings. And we have a standard that if we say a meeting that starts at eight, we do not mean 8:05.”

This was a luxury hotel in which timeliness was a sign of excellence, precision, and attention to detail. Meetings started on time. The general manager was asking, “Given our culture and standards, what am I supposed to do about this? We consider that behavior disrespectful toward the other people in the meeting.”

I said, “Well, tell me about the director of sales. How is she doing against the budgeted goals?”

He replied, “She's blowin' 'em away.”

“Okay,” I said, “how is she doing with her people? Is she a good mentor?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, “she trains people, and we promote them out to other hotels. People are standing in line to get into this department to work for her.”

I responded, “What's your problem?”

“She's late to meetings!”

I said, “Do you want a director of marketing ...