 |
Bob: “Who is the moron who left the cell
phone in the aircraft’s engine compartment?” Among the fifty attendees at the maintenance
Bob: “Jill, you are an idiot! What moron
leaves a cell phone in the engine cowling?
Jill, you need to pack up your stuff and go. You are done! Let this be a lesson to all of you to not do such an idiotic move; you will be fired like Jill. Jill, get your stuff and get out!” |
In a training session on ethics, we read the scenario (left) for discussion. Some of us initially agreed that Bob did the right thing in firing Jill. We generally agreed it perhaps should have been done in private.
The point of the training was respect in the workplace. Neither the reproof nor the disciplinary action should occur in front of the entire work group, of course.
But there's more. If
anyone should be fired, it’s Bob!
A few of us hung around as the session adjourned to talk further. Aviation
maintenance is a team effort with fairly rigid procedures. Mechanics and technicians don’t have loose
stuff in their pockets. Tools are
checked out and back in afterwards. If a
cell phone or hand-held radio is needed on the flight line, it’s annotated and
checked on return. QA verifies the
work. There are a variety of standards for such things, and it’s
impressive when done right.
Bob’s fifty-person aviation
maintenance facility wasn't doing it right.
Anger, name-calling, and firing the mechanic, all obscure the cause and don't address the organizational process failure. Other employees aren't inspired to excellence by Bob's tantrum. They're more likely to feel threatened and uneasy. That's probably why company policy says don't do that.
A detailed inquiry, analysis, policy and practice checks, those are perhaps the reasoned response to
such things.
So if I lose my temper and really blast someone, chances are I've got it wrong.
Yep.
Completely wrong?
Yep.
A hundred percent wrong??
Yep.
So I'm an idiot (i.e., acting in a self-defeating or significantly counterproductive way).
Yep.
Thoughts?