Ever been in a position where the student surpasses the teacher and become in charge of the teacher? In our academic years this should not occur, but in the working world this is a fairly common occurrence. For me it occurred during my national service stint.
I was to be a Sergeant in my unit, however that promotion would only take place in a few weeks time. In order to prepare me for my future role, I was taught by the men who would be below me in rank about how the unit was run and what task am I suppose to undertake when I gain my rank. They were my teachers so to speak. A few weeks later I got my promotion and was now in charge of the people who taught me everything about how to do my job. The problem that now arises is this, how do you order your teachers to do a task for you? Things that they do not wish to do but nevertheless have to be done.
So how does one go about asking people who taught you everything you needed to know to do your job to do tasks that they do not want to do? For example guard duty, for those who do not know what it is, it is basically standing in front of a gate the whole day and checking people who enters the camp. It sounds alright, however try getting somebody to give up their precious weekend to do this mundane job and I assure you the replies would be hostile.
My friend gave me a very nice solution to this problem. He told me the best way to solve it is to show them that you are one of them and only doing your job. In fact this is something that most middle managers do to get disgruntle employees to do their job, act like they are friends with them and slowly persuade them to do task they do not want to do. This does work, I personally tried it out. However, is this the best way to solve such a problem, or are there better solution out there?
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Open Topic: Role Reversal
Posted by
Ryan Lim
at
11:58 AM
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4 comments:
Hi Ryan, this is quite a unique topic to touch on! You gave me a different aspect of what communication was about.
Anyway, if I were you, I would go ahead and instruct my "teacher" to do what he had to do because after all, work is official and should not be mixed with personal affairs. Plus, I think that it is unfair if I gave all the work to others but gave my "teacher" the benefit of skipping these duties. In terms of weekend tasks like guard duty, if every one was given equal opportunity to rest and the duty was rotated equally, I am sure that all of them would be happy with the allocation.
I do agree with your friend's suggestion. That is, to do your job and to show them that you are more like a friend than a bossy superior. If need be, you could do more work to show that these work comes with an increase in rank. Those that you undertake would thus respect you more than detest you for the duties you assign to them.
Further more, I am pretty sure your "teacher" would understand the position you are in and would be more than happy to help you carry out the task you assigned him to.
This is overall a very interesting post!
Cheers,
Shu Ting
Hi Ryan,
I definitely have to comment on this blog of yours since I used to sleep with you. (In the same bunk. Please do not get the wrong idea.)
Since I'm also a fellow Sergeant, I am in a good position to comment on this. Firstly, though they have taught you how to carry out the work, you have to remember that there is a difference between being a Sergeant and being one of the men. As a Sergeant, you would have to receive orders and responsibilities from people above you (who might have to learn from you too). The men may know more than you in terms of work, but you have to instruct them to do their work. That is the key difference.
Knowing that you have to give instructions, you can either order them to do so, or you can ask them to do so. I would suggest asking them nicely, but firmly. Since you have a higher rank, they know that they have to listen to you. So, they'll still carry out your instructions but not as grudgingly as if you had ordered them to do so.
As for the duties, you should have come up with a duties roster to show everyone that they all have a fair share of duties. It is easier than having to keep asking them if they want to do the duties.
But if they still don't want to listen to you, then you can jolly well get your sergeant major to charge them. It is, afterall, the army! What do you expect?
Cheers,
Glenn
Hi Ryan,
This kind of situation does put people in a difficult position. I do not know much about the army, hence I shall look at this problem from an everyday point of view.
Being the in-charge now, one of your responsibilities is to give instructions and ensure work is done. Most subordinates would understand this point, regardless of whether or not they taught you the ropes. In my opinion, the unhappiness of the workers usually arose from the way the boss treated them. If the boss just orders his workers about haughtily, the workers would definitely be unhappy with him. However, if you take a soft approach and ask them to do things in a modest manner, the workers may not be thick-skinned enough to decline you. To gain respect from your subordinates, including those that taught you, you should firstly do your job well and then undertake more difficult task so that they will know you have the abilities and that you got promoted because of your capability, not because of other factors.
As for delegating tasks that most people hate, drawing up a duty roster and giving everyone an equal share of the tasks seemed like the best way so far since this is an unbiased method. Anyone against the distribution of work should then discuss openly with the team on a better arrangement instead of pinpointing at the boss.
On the whole, this is a realistic situation as you never know one day your ex-boss may end up working for you.
Regards,
wanyee
Hi Ryan,
A wholesome read! However, I feel this situation need not be a tricky one, depending on the context.
In your case during your National Service time, yes it is conflicting because it seems like your “teachers” are teaching you how to instruct them. This is actually rather odd since it would have been more appropriate if the previous sergeants were your teachers instead, because it may be possible that the men refrain from sharing with you all the duties that you ought to do, especially if some of the duties implied “troublesome tasks” for them. On the whole, it was uneasy for you to instruct the men because of the reversal in roles.
In the working world, I would say that generally people tend to be more professional and would readily do the tasks you have set for them even if there was a role reversal. Unlike the National Service case which people see as mostly a chore, at the workplace, people are making their livelihood and would thus seek to impress their boss. This is because their performance appraisal is mostly likely to be done by you and this appraisal is closely linked to their annual bonus or maybe even their next promotion.
Regards,
Nicholas
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