Video, 1999,
Coastal Training Technologies.
Support: facilitator manual, participant manual, facilitator guide.
Review by Paul Pierroz
Rating:
In a hurry?
Recommendation
I'm sure there's a little Jack Cade in all of us. The star of this video-print program, Manager Jack, has a habit of taking a head down, bull-in-the-china-shop approach to performance management. The habit lands him in a heap of trouble, costing him his job and probably a lot of cash.
Jack's plight starts innocently enough. He fails to communicate a simple attendance policy and doesn’t complete his team's performance reviews. Big deal, right? What managers hasn’t done the like?
But Jack's inability to support, implement, and enforce these responsibilities triggers a cascade of events involving his team members, management colleagues, senior management, and yes, even his neighbor. He eventually finds himself dealing with larger problems, starting with routine complaints and team turnover and ending with discussions about his job performance and legal liability. In fact, tape one ends with Jack, head in his hands, on the witness stand being grilled by an aggressive attorney representing one of his former team members who’s claiming wrongful dismissal.
Staying Out of Hot Water
In tape two we learn how Jack could have avoided all this trouble and stayed out of the crossfire: follow the 10 rules of performance management. The rules are narrated by a legal expert and illustrated with tape one footage of hapless Jack’s conversations and the courtroom challenges to his decisions.
Rule number one, "You are the organization," is illustrated with Jack and his neighbor Phyllis discussing one of Jack’s subordinates, Obie, a natural troublemaker in Jack's eyes. While watering his garden on his day off, he mentions that Obie is probably "on drugs" and certainly too old to be effective. No wonder Jack soon wakes up screaming and looking like the garden hose has been turned on him!
The series comes off exceedingly well. Considering the potential of the topic to kill interest almost immediately, I expected much less–an initial list of legal principles delivered by a portentous presenter, followed by a model for "correct behavior." You get the inverse: Jack's actual discussions and decisions, the courtroom challenge to his resulting actions, and finally the rules for preventing his nightmare.
The dozen or so actors are believable as factory workers, a senior executive, or a courtroom lawyer. The director has managed a quick pace, and Jack provides comic relief with his renegade approach, wall punching, and impulsive, on-the-spot terminations.
Recommendation
If your goal is to introduce managers to basic leadership principles and review the business consequences of a shoot-from-the-hip philosophy, this program is right on the money. It’s a refreshing twist on training in a manager’s key skills: coaching, counseling, and communication. It's ideal for anyone responsible for managing the link between his or her organization and team members. I strongly recommended it for organizations and teams committed to improving their performance and reducing a cycle of subpar performance, low morale, turnover, and legal challenges. It should work well for group or self-study.
