By John McGregor
Sometime in the late seventies I was promoted from Territory Salesman to the glorious heights of Area Sales Manager, which meant managing a team of people for the first time. The company I worked for took such matters seriously and as part of my ongoing training I was sent on a one day ‘Management of People’ course in the Training Centre at our head office.
This building was actually a large hut in the middle of the car park, but our company was well known, certainly in sales for its thorough training methods and place was well-known to me. I had attended my first week’s induction there some five years earlier and attended several courses over the previous few years.
On this particular day I was the only sales person attending of about twelve people. The others were from various departments that make up a busy manufacturer: accounts, marketing, distribution, production etc, all people being in charge of others for the first time. Except for one – Gordon.
This man had lately joined the company as the Factory Training Manager, and lost little time in letting us all know it. His superior attitude could be summed up as ‘I don’t really know why I’m here, I know all this stuff – I should be training you…’ This stance quickly won him few friends amongst us, there were a few raised eyebrows and ribs nudged as Gordon tried to speak down to us.
From nine o’clock until the coffee break we discussed dealing with people: how and how not to approach them to try to get the best out of them, and from memory it was a good session. Then we stopped and moved next door for a short break where Gordon once again reminded us of his considerable experience in life: yawn… When we were ushered back in there was a blank sheet of paper on the desk which we were told not to touch. After we were seated it was explained that we now had a short test of exactly 30 minutes, and to turn over the paper and start.
At the top it read: ‘Read through the paper thoroughly’. Then there were a numbered list of instructions and questions. Number one said ‘Write your name clearly at the top of the paper’. Number two said ‘Divide 314 by 17’. Question three said ‘Turn over the paper and draw a circle approximately 3.5 inches in diameter and divide it into nine sections, shading in alternate ones.
The next twenty-seven questions were similarly awkward, time-consuming and vague. When you got down to question thirty, the penultimate question it read: ’Completely ignore all questions above, only obey numbers one, thirty and thirty one (the last one). This last one read: ‘Sit with your arms folded’. So: if you read through the paper initially, as it told you to do at the top, all you had to do was write your name and sit with your arms folded…
What luckily saved me from embarrassment was that I had been caught with this one once before on a previous sales course, and the warning bells clanged. On either side of me and around the room people were writing furiously, but I saw a bright young woman opposite smiling at me with her arms folded, and looking round one other young man was similarly sitting smirking. But the best was yet to come… After ten minutes a superior voice loudly announced:
‘My name is Gordon and I am the leader in following directions’. Yes, Gordon had got to question eight first, which read: ‘Say out loud your name and that you are the leader in following directions’. Laugh? I thought I’d never stop, but Gordon didn’t notice – he was in full flow, head down and going for it. By now one or two more had caught on to the trick, and had altered course to sit arms folded and enjoy the spectacle, but the rest were caught and in turn repeated Gordon’s claim.
However, the glory was all the Factory Training Manager’s. He had got there first – and was therefore the undisputed ‘Leader in Following Directions’ – and he should have known better in his position. Doing it Gordon’s way you could never get to the end of the test in only thirty minutes, the questions were designed to be time-consuming, so when the thirty minutes were up most threw their pens down in exhaustion and frustration.
So when the instructor running the course announced ‘This was a test of your ability to follow instructions, an important point in management , ie doing as you are told – and not what you personally think. Gordon, what does it say at the top of the page?’ Gordon read it out, but it still hadn’t sunk in. The instructor twisted the knife:
‘Now, pass down to the penultimate question, number, 30, please, Gordon.’ As he read it out there was a groan from our man as he realised he’d been well and truly had, and he went red… very red. From then on for the rest of the day Gordon maintained a surly silence, hardly joining in the discussions and conversations over lunch and tea. Quite simply, it couldn’t have happened to a better bloke. I believe he left the company soon after…
PS: Several years later, due to austerity measures our superb Training Department was done away with, including, sadly, the wonderful hut on the car park. After a while I asked my boss where the future sales management would be coming from now, with no ongoing program which I had benefitted from so much. Ken, my 50 year-old manager, motivator and delegator extraordinaire immediately turned it on me:
‘Right, young John,’ he said.’ Get the top ten young blades in the sales force together for a week and put ‘em through it. You’re in charge – it’ll do you good!’. So I did. I loved it, hard work but very rewarding, dare I say for everyone.
On the first morning I needed an ice-breaker – so guess what I did? Yes, I laid the ‘I Am The Leader In Following Directions’ exercise on them, and broadly speaking the ratio of success was about the same. We didn’t have any ‘Gordons’, but it shut one or two of the more cocky ones up and made them think… Happy days!
