NEXT STOP: UNSTOPPABLE E-Book

Malte Stöckert

• Herausgeber: YessYess Verlagsagentur - 20sec UG (haftungsbeschränkt)
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 269

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Malte Stöckert takes the reader on a journey to the daily challenges of a middle manager and his team in a manufacturing company. You get to know Thomas on this journey. He is faced with seemingly unsolvable tasks and feels in a conflict of values that makes him doubt himself and the task again and again. Accompany Thomas on his journey to examine and reflect on his own worldview. In the end, Thomas keeps asking himself what the meaning behind it all is. This is a question that is obviously being asked more and more frequently by people in the German SME sector. The relevance of this work in the entrepreneurial context becomes impressively clear in these passages of the book. Manager Thomas develops his own approach in the course of the book. He experiences the dimensions of his actions and understands what it really means to take responsibility for himself and for his team. He learns to deal with conflict situations and also understands emotionally which tasks he has to solve. A must for every middle manager who feels driven, rushed and sometimes even superfluous. An appeal and a call for a fact-based discussion, a deep examination of oneself and the acceptance of leadership. Things that are taught far too rarely in our educational institutions.

Leseprobe

Malte Stöckert

NEXT STOP: UNSTOPPABLE

How Managers Create Unstoppable Output with Responsibility!

© 2021 Malte Stöckert

Umschlag, Illustration: Daniela Urban

Coverbild: shutterstock/Denis Belitsky

Lektorat, Korrektorat: Wolfgang Sand M.A.

Weitere Mitwirkende:

Markus Coenen – Autorencoaching

Wolfgang S. Becker – Händische Skizzierung, Grafik der Widmung

Verlag & Druck: tredition GmbH, Halenreie 40-44, 22359 Hamburg

ISBN

Paperback

978-3-98631-003-5

Hardcover

978-3-98631-004-2

e-Book

978-3-98631-005-9

Das Werk, einschließlich seiner Teile, ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages und des Autors unzulässig. Dies gilt insbesondere für die elektronische oder sonstige Vervielfältigung, Übersetzung, Verbreitung und öffentliche Zugänglichmachung.

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek:

Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar.

Table of contents

THE REAL IDEA

What Really Matters Is What the Customer Is Saying

You Can Only Build an Organization if the Customer Actually Wants Your Product

UNFAMILIAR SITUATIONS – HELL FROM WITHIN – EVERYTHING HAS CONSEQUENCES

Situations You’re Probably Not Familiar With

Hell from Within the Organization

Chaos and the Manager’s Pile of Tasks:

The Meaningfulness of the Task

Thinking in Circles Only Leaves You in a Cage

Most Problems About Quality Arise Because Risk Is Not Properly Assessed at the Beginning

STEP ONE – YOU!

The Definition of a Manager

Responsibility Starts with Personal Responsibility

Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?

Investing in Yourself

I Myself Am the Change

What Is My Biggest Challenge?

Who Is Your Number One?

Who Are You Surrounded By?

Beliefs

From Shallow Awareness to a Position of Responsibility

Love It, Change It, or Leave It

STEP TWO: ANALYSIS

Transparency – An Unbiased Reality Check

People Are Relieved When the Cat Is Finally Let Out of the Bag

Thorough Analysis Must Come Before Any Solutions

For Today, Tomorrow, and Yesterday

Insights Without Concrete Measures Are Meaningless

100% is not 80%

Almost All the Reasons for Not Doing Something Are Wrong

Opportunities and Risks

The Ideal Image

What Is It Supposed to Be Like?

Deviation Analysis

What Might Happen During Implementation?

STEP THREE: GET IT DONE

How Can I Really Encourage Engagement?

Empowering Your Team

From Naysayer to Change Enabler

Team Leadership, Delegation, and Focus

The Definition of a Team

Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution for the Team?

Do Your Job – RIGHT

A Principle: GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME – Go Over Everything Only Once

It’s Not Done Until It’s Done with a Result (Positive or Negative)

STEP FOUR: DON’T SETTLE FOR MEDIOCRITY – THE CUSTOMER WON’T EITHER!

Work Never Stops

Setting a Framework

Getting Closer to the Customer

Drawing Conclusions

Setting Up a Cycle

THE REAL IDEA

What Really Matters Is What the Customer Is Saying

A business? It’s not worth starting at all if you don’t know exactly what your customer wants.

No customers means no business being done. No customers interested in your product means no revenue being generated. Simply put, no customers means no company. And if the customer isn’t getting a product that adds value to him or her in some way, that also means: no company.

The farmer tills the field and grows the grain, which he sells to the miller, who grinds flour from it and sells it to the baker, who then makes bread from it and sells it to his customers at the bakery, the folks buying the bread. The added value the baker prepares for his customers is that of satiety – a vital detail because, without satisfied customers, the baker can’t fulfill his role, which in turn directly affects the miller and the farmer, too.

The farmer, the miller, and the baker must produce their products in such high quality that they’re accepted by us as customers. If the quality of the bread deteriorates, we go to another baker and buy the bread there. If the bread at the first baker gets too expensive for our liking, again, we simply go to another baker and buy the bread there.

The quality of the product and the price we’re willing to pay for it are somehow related, but it’s no longer the case that the most expensive product is also of the highest quality. Many other aspects (not just the subjective ones) play a much greater role in the purchase of products today than we’re commonly aware of – even when just buying bread. The nutrition-conscious shopper will be willing to spend more money on a high-quality loaf of bread, while the eco-sustainable shopper will want to buy organic goods and is probably willing to spend more money on them. Still, other shoppers are just interested in the bread being inexpensive.

Either way, it’s the customer who ultimately puts the price tag on us as manufacturer, producer, or provider of a service.

The better we manage to produce our product in a cost-efficient manner, the greater the revenue we’ll be able to collect. In fact, lean management has become increasingly popular in recent decades to develop and establish efficient processes. The greater the administration effort, meaning the effort not directly related to the creation of the product nor its fulfillment, the lower the revenue you generate from it.

The quality of the product or service we provide is a key factor in determining whether a company remains competitive (whether it can sell its products to customers in such a way that keeps them coming back). Although repeatedly delivering the same high quality is the right thing to do, it’s just not enough these days either. Today, product quality must keep growing and growing because any standstill in development means falling behind a competitor and no longer being first in the eyes of the customer.

There are countless examples where the consistent quality of the product has ultimately led to companies disappearing from the market. Not even large global corporations are spared from this. One example is the cellphone manufacturer Nokia: when’s the last time you bought something cellphone-related from them?

If a company gets too busy with internal administration and forgets about meeting the customer’s needs, stagnation is inevitable. In the long run, the company’s products will become too expensive or no longer respond to customer demand; the company will have to downsize, shrink, or even disappear from the market altogether.

Consistently delivering good quality doesn’t cut it for the customer anymore. Nowadays, that’s a prerequisite for having any success in the market at all.

Middle management in many manufacturing and service companies must run efficient processes, pay attention to costs, and ensure high quality all at the same time. They also regularly deal with issues of team leadership and report to higher management with justifications for why x number of resources are being spent for y – and all of this under the permanent pressure to save costs.

It’s no wonder that the connection to the product thus the customer is pushed into the background since the manager is too busy providing the latest data collection while having to justify figures that aren’t as good as previously predicted or demanded by the higher-ups. I call this phenomenon customer distance, which is becoming greater and greater.

Many managers today very rarely think about what their product triggers in the end customer or even how the customers feel when they’re holding the company’s product in their hands. If this customer relationship no longer exists – as I’ve seen and experienced time and again in recent years in many large and medium-sized companies – then the meaningfulness of the whole activity is quickly being forgotten. If the customer is no longer the direct contact person, then there’s a great danger that the person involved in the creation of the product or service is losing touch with great quality and simply doesn’t empathize with the customer (nor wants to).

But what does “quality” actually mean? When you’ve booked a stay in a four-star hotel, you have a certain expectation of the quality of service you're going to get. Clean rooms, very good food, and courteous service are all the norm, right? It’s often the case, even in the best hotels, that there are unskilled or inexperienced employees working at reception. Nothing infuriates the travel-weary guest more than an unfriendly reception or an inefficient check-in process. Although everyone should know that it’s the first impression that really counts, so many hotels don’t place enough value on a friendly and courteous welcome at reception. It sounds so simple and yet somehow, apparently, so complicated to provide consistently excellent quality of service there.

Yet if I as a hotel manager don’t succeed in this transfer, namely putting myself in the customer’s shoes, then I simply won’t be able to retain guests. And if I can’t manage this transfer as part of company output, then the customer’s opinion seems completely irrelevant to me. Customer distance is then infinite, practically in another dimension. In my many conversations with product teams, I heard the following claim repeatedly when it came to new product development in higher price ranges: “The customer doesn’t want that” – said without any factual basis whatsoever or the actual “customer” having been asked. Too large a customer distance – whether consciously made because it’s easier to keep to the usual habits, it’s just not possible to minimize it, or daily work challenges are so diverse that it’s often a matter of justification – simply ensures, in the long run, that either fulfillment of service or product quality will suffer.

Even worse, the manager, having signed up for the job with good intentions, loses touch with the meaningfulness of his task and thus any deeper fulfillment in what he does. Without this deeper connection, he only does his job well enough to meet the minimum requirements because he’s constantly thinking about how this isn’t the right fit or what he was actually looking for. Though it’s not his intention, the manager actively ensures the deterioration of product or service quality precisely in this way. He is constantly looking for distractions on the outside, whether that means changing jobs, or deciding how and where he wants to spend his next vacation.

Consider the hotel example again. On the one hand, I must have left well over a hundred hotel ratings and reviews in my life, yet I have received just ONE response to my reviews. So, what’s the point of those comment forms in hotel rooms? How do I know anyone is reading my remarks on the quality of the service or the cleanliness of the room? As a customer, I’m obviously not being taken seriously here. How else can you explain all the other hotels that haven’t given feedback on my comments? On the other hand, though, how EASY is it to seriously consider the customer’s opinion and thus increase the quality of your service – even if that just means the hotel phoning the customer and thanking him for the comments? Again and again, I read about feel-good hotels advertising how they’re the best place to kick back and relax. Seriously? These are exactly the hotels that should be taking the time to understand their customers’ comments and criticisms.

For the manager, this means consciously seeking to understand customer orientation. When the manager is properly oriented towards the customer, he’s constantly imagining what the customer will feel or think when she first experiences that perfectly crafted product.

You Can Only Build an Organization if the Customer Actually Wants Your Product

It’s not worth building an organization until you know exactly what the customer wants.

To offer a complex, great product or service to the customer, there needs to be a great organization backing it up. The better the people in the organization understand what the customer really feels and thinks, the better they can anticipate what the customer actually wants, i.e., the better they can translate what the customer wants into a valuable service or a great product.

If you look at organizations today you might see how, for many people, there’s no interest whatsoever in what the customer really wants. Take retail, for example. They’re undergoing a steadily deteriorating sales environment because most consumers order their things from specific suppliers on the Internet and have them delivered directly to their homes. Large department stores, which were a must-have in every major German city in the 1980s, are more and more disappearing from city centers today. And that’s not just because of consumer convenience; it’s also because of the neutral, unfriendly treatment that customers experience in-store. Employees or employers don’t want to adapt to the new situation and change for the better, apparently.

So, as a store owner or employee wanting to retain customers, I need to think carefully: what does the customer actually want to experience in my store? There are many examples where this is achieved through a special approach to the customer, a unique product range, or through a particularly well-designed atmosphere.

Again, what does the customer want to experience when he’s choosing to buy something in-store instead of online? When looking into how manufacturing companies are organized, you notice that very few of them consider what experience the customer wants to have with the manufactured product. This applies to all price ranges, especially the higher ones, where even more effort should be put in.

It may be that a company has very good marketing and a market research department that specializes in generating new product ideas. But already at the next stage with the product developer, the interest seems to fizzle out. Add the purchasing department into the mix, which, having less interest in the quality of components, is often cost-driven and prefers buying from low-wage countries, and the idea of wanting to create a great product for the customer starts to dwindle.

In this kind of environment, production and quality managers must be proactive with, represent, and enforce their own interests. A conflict of goals is inevitable. The quality manager must constantly wrestle with the fact that other departments are trying to deliver the quality that was promised but not delivered. Special approvals and concessions are permanently created to justify the ever-decreasing product quality. Oddly enough, companies where quality is “practiced” in this way often have something to say about high quality in their corporate values. In these companies, adherence to quality is the supreme law.

But what does all this have to do with the customer’s wishes, which in the best-case scenario should be anticipated so that the product or service can succeed in being particularly valuable? Almost nothing. In fact, there’s a complete disconnect between the customer’s request and the actions taken.

Yet the more you’re able to incorporate the customer’s wants and needs into the daily operations of the organization, the better the fulfillment of the service or product will be. The organization that is inspired by meeting customers’ needs and anticipates what else they’d want will always have an advantage over organizations where people don’t care about them.

In well-run hotels, the bartender will consciously take time to start a conversation with each guest so they feel attended to and appreciated. Good hotels pay special attention to this customer experience.

A very simple question I always ask is: “What would you expect from us if you were our customer?” This works in many situations because it suddenly becomes clear what needs to be done. Other, less pressing concerns suddenly move into the background.

But today, the interests of shareholders or top management are often put BEFORE the interests of the customers. You can see the impact of this trade-off in middle management discussions – their disputes about whether a product should be delivered with a defect so that the monthly quota is met, for example. Is this really being done in the interest of the customer?

If the company’s management doesn’t keep the customer’s wishes in mind, then selfish needs and interests take their place, and consideration for what the customer actually wants falls by the wayside. In that kind of environment, it’s all about tangible and egocentric, selfish goals. It’s about advancing your career and salary. The lower-level manager now finds himself in a conflict of objectives: should he fulfill the needs of his superior, the customer’s wishes, or act according to the values set by the company’s leadership? Most try to juggle everything, striving to meet every requirement. In the end, what’s important and for what purpose the work is being done become completely unclear.

The manager, with all these various goals weighing him down, loses motivation to work because he simply doesn’t know what should be done anymore. So, he reduces his commitment in the medium term because he realizes that, otherwise, he’ll be worn out trying to meet all the various demands..

UNFAMILIAR SITUATIONS – HELL FROM WITHIN – EVERYTHING HAS CONSEQUENCES

Situations You’re Probably Not Familiar With

Our actions always have consequences. My action triggers something and I’m doing it consciously, in the positive sense. I plant flower bulbs in the spring, for example, because I want to enjoy the beautiful blooming flowers later in the year.

In the same way, however, doing nothing also has consequences. Because we’ve been looking the other way for decades when it comes to plastic waste, to name another example, we’re now stuck with the consequences of a huge mountain of plastic floating on the ocean. Everyone appreciates a nice result. But no one really likes to hear about not-so-nice, negative consequences.

Companies disappear from the market because they cannot cope with the negative consequences of their actions. Think about Nokia, the cell phone manufacturing company I mentioned earlier. Before Nokia was completely out of the business, they assumed that smartphones would never catch on. But did they ever pay the price for their misjudgment: today, they no longer exist on the market.

Everyone knows that, with exercise and good nutrition, they can age well and enjoy a better life when they’re older. Yet millions of people still smoke, eat fast food, and barely exercise. They’ll probably have to bear the consequences of their inaction in the form of health complications in their old age.

Another example: Boeing’s attempt to cheat on the agency’s acceptance process probably cost not only thousands of jobs but the life quality of hundreds of people. Everything has consequences.

I have seen many projects where the project manager didn’t dare mention that the project’s given time or resources wouldn’t be enough. But that's his job, and he was happy to be in that position regardless, so he should take responsibility and tell his team, right? An astonishing 60% of project managers don’t believe in the success of their projects, either. The consequence? Team members are kept in the dark, important details aren’t communicated, and the project ultimately fails.

The auto industry is rife with examples where the late completion of product development led to significant impacts down the line. An unbelievable number of injection molds have never been used because they couldn’t function properly or because the chief designer changed his mind again shortly before the start of production, thus frustrating all efforts to bring the product to market in the desired time and with the desired quality.

There are halls full of seat sets that were never installed in cars due to qualitative defects: the consequence of a lax quality policy or not stringently adhering to design rules. Perhaps all this wouldn’t have been so bad if it were just a small production and a bit of time spent on the seats, but so many working hours went into it, material for the leather sets came from living creatures, etc. It’s a shamefully massive waste of time, money, and materials.

Let’s think about budgets and say that a manager has prepared his budget to the best of his knowledge, explaining how he needs all the staff he can get to fulfill the tasks. And then he hears that he needs to cut costs again by x percent. What consequences will this have for the manager? If he’s smart, he’ll run his costs higher before the next budget round, giving himself a nice cushion. In any case, he must put a lot of energy into making the budget work on paper before he can implement it. So, preparing the budget will become a burden for him because he realizes that under these circumstances, he won’t be able to get the necessary performance out of his department anyway. The main consequence? The manager is only moderately motivated to implement company interests, and he starts seriously thinking about changing jobs.

I have seen many a project where the budget was simply too low and although this was known to everyone and clearly presented as such, in the end, everyone acted surprised when the money ran out. With extra effort, the situation is halfway cleaned up. But by then the costs are usually much higher than what they could have been if they were properly accounted for in the first place.

I even know examples where penny products ended up costing lives because people were too greedy to spend a reasonable amount on something so vital. If a newborn is separated from the umbilicus, then the umbilical cord needs to be clamped. Simple clamps get the job done. But what if the clamps aren’t properly made due to a lazy, inadequate budget or an avoidable production error? It’s horrible to think about. But the nurse needs those clamps to be 100% reliable because she’ll be using them hundreds of times. Everything has consequences.

Sure, the vast majority of the day-to-day tasks on our plate don't have THESE kinds of dire consequences, but it certainly makes sense to carefully think about HOW you’re performing the job you’ve in fact chosen to do. Being guided by truly high values is one thing, but if you’re only concerned with fulfilling your basic obligations, hoping that no one is watching, then you might let something slip under the radar. It’s a bad habit to develop and only ends up hurting your reputation, the company, and the customer.

Hell from Within the Organization

Let’s take the manager Thomas as our main example. Thomas represents middle management, i.e., he passes on company values to his team and at the same time makes sure that his part of the workplace is up and running. He deliberately chose this job. Though he still needs guidance, he has an urge to give something to the world; he’s driven by his ambition to achieve something for his family and himself. Thomas is shaped by the ideals he absorbed in his youth and carried with him throughout his studies. He wants to change the world because that’s simply what drives him.

On his first day on the job, he encounters an abundance of tasks and is quickly overwhelmed.

On the second day, he meets members of his team who aren’t under the illusion that they can really achieve or change anything, and, for the first time, he asks himself, how can that be? Wasn’t it different in the interview? Didn’t it all sound so different, even much better? Isn’t the company all about wanting to fashion the very best for customers and employees alike?

On the third day, Thomas meets his “peers,” the other department heads and managers, but all of them seem to pursue completely different goals than the company. The first meeting is not confrontational, yet it feels strange because they wish him good luck in his new job, and he suspects that the remark wasn’t completely sincere. Why is wishing that the customer be respected suddenly something to question? Why does everything suddenly revolve around costs? How can Thomas explain to his team that he will have to deviate from the noble goals he promised only yesterday? Confused, he goes home.

On the fourth day, he perceives not everything is being done the way he thinks is best, and for the first time, he doubts whether he has chosen the right job after all. But he decides it’s not over yet and he shows up for the fifth day.

Fridays aren’t that rowdy in this organization, he finds out. He has time to gather his first impressions and realizes that a lot of work lies ahead of him.

Still euphoric about his first week, Thomas enjoys the weekend with his friends because he has probably chosen the best company to work for, he believes.

The next week goes quietly and he slowly gets used to it. He doesn’t go to every meeting with confrontation on his mind (and there is a hell of a lot of meetings); instead, he holds back here and there because it’s probably not the right time. This is all okay for doing his job, he thinks, but as far as the assertion of his goals and the values he represents are concerned – which he thought the company also represented – there’s nothing but big question marks.

In the third week, he creates a master plan for how he’ll set up his department to meet the challenges that’ll come its way. He’s pleased with the plan; it’s a brilliant masterpiece in its own right.

In the fourth week, he sets out to communicate his plan to his team, when he encounters the first bit of resistance. His team doesn’t seem to understand what he wants. He picks up on a general feeling of refusal here and there. One of them says, “we've always done it that way,” and another one doubts Thomas’s competence as a manager. He senses he still has a lot to learn and has by no means understood everything. In the evenings and on weekends, he racks his brain about what he can do better so his team understands what he wants. What he wants: isn’t it obvious? He washes his hands of all the time spent so far, figuring it’s better to just keep going.

Chaos and the Manager’s Pile of Tasks:

Micromanagement and Other Leadership Principles, or How Subordinates Become Naysayers

Thomas brings up his master plan with his team again. But it’s not all smooth sailing. The team is multidisciplinary, which Thomas must balance with the thousand things suddenly on his mind during the ramp-up of a new upper mid-range car they’re going to be working on. He has to deal with ALL the logistical requirements, ensuring that the right materials arrive at the installation place, in the right quality, and at the right time. That’s where his team is supposed to come in. But the team is young, inexperienced, and not familiar with the market, nor have they learned how to put pressure on suppliers with delinquent or poor-quality deliveries.

Thomas tries to gain control over the situation, including the small tasks. His tool of choice is a big board where all the daily tasks are written, assigned to individuals, and given deadlines and specific times. Every morning at 8:00 a.m. sharp, he expects his team to gather at the board and report back to him on what’s been completed and what’s still left.

On the first morning he’s in front of a motivated team, sensing they’re ready to learn something and move forward. They participate in the discussion with interest and willingly accept tasks. However, he already notes that some are reluctant to commit to completion dates or even basic times. That’s not too good, he thinks, but he leaves it alone for now.

He receives additional tasks from his customers’ contacts and from suppliers throughout the day, which he’s happy to delegate to team members. So, he schedules a new meeting for the early afternoon. Thomas is ready to distribute the new tasks but encounters the first grumpy answers describing how the morning tasks haven’t been completed yet, and the team needs more time to finish those before taking on anything new.

Fine, Thomas thinks. He expects his team to be present and ready at 8:00 a.m. the next morning. The next morning comes. Thomas notes that not even 50% of the distributed tasks have been completed yet. Considering everything he wrote down yesterday and everything else he came up with during a restless night, Thomas sees how the tasks on the board are quickly piling up. It’s all starting to get a bit confusing.

Not all team members are present at the meeting the following morning, and those who show up STILL haven’t completed their assigned tasks.

Now, Thomas is frustrated. After all, he had such a good plan on how to proceed, not to mention all the motivation in the world to meet the special challenge. He just doesn’t understand why the others on his team can’t seem to grasp the importance of the tasks.

Thomas changes his tone and toughens up, becoming more demanding of his team members and setting even shorter deadlines because he wants things to finally get done.

At the end of the week, he realizes that only a fraction of what he set out to do for his team had in fact been done. Thomas, now completely annoyed by his team’s lackluster performance, mutters to himself, if you want something done right…. He heads into the weekend frustrated, continuing to ponder how this could have happened.

Finding his resolve, he makes another plan, this time to only pursue targeted tasks. One task at a time and then he just has to get his team to help him.

So, Thomas bears down on the tasks with pressure and urgency, addressing his team members individually when needed. This seems to work, and Thomas manages to get a few bigger chunks out of the way which have been bugging him for a while now.

When he gets tasks back to him from his team members, he looks closely at the results and critiques, improves, and corrects where he can. Thomas thinks that’s when the team learns the quickest about what he expects from them.

Slowly but surely, he gets a hang of the work method and is happy to see that at least a few tasks are getting done now. Thomas meticulously keeps track of the tasks on the board too. A good feeling begins to set in as the humongous to-do pile slowly diminishes; however, he also notices that a lot of tasks are still being handed in too late.

For the first time, Thomas has to report the project’s overall progress to his superiors. It becomes quite clear to him, though, that they’re not satisfied with the results so far. So, he sits down again over the weekend and reorganizes the tasks, responsibilities, and deadlines. Everything. By Sunday evening he’s pleased with his plan and wants to put it into practice with his team right away on Monday.

Monday comes. Only half of the team members are present. Thomas doesn’t like this at all. When the rest finally show up in the afternoon, he has a few critical conversations with them about attendance. Thomas is supposed to report to upper management again on Thursday. The closer the deadline gets, the more nervous he gets because his team simply can’t get their tasks done in the allotted time.

The team’s performance on Thursday is a disaster. Thomas’s superiors question his competence, mostly about how he’s leading his team. Thomas leaves the meeting completely frustrated and decides that enough is enough.

On Friday morning, he approaches his team in a visibly bad mood and confronts them with the poor results. Quivering with rage, he lets out all his frustration while the team members stare at him anxiously and begin to back away. Thomas gets scared. Did he overdo it? He needs the team’s input. It won't work at all without them. Thomas abruptly breaks off the meeting and withdraws. Completely confused and unsure of himself, he nervously paces the halls.

But he’s able to pick himself up again come afternoon and tries making another plan. In the meantime, the pile of tasks has become a mountain; completing everything seems an insurmountable goal, now.

Suddenly, there’s a knock at Thomas’s door: a relief that tears him out of his panic-stricken thoughts. It’s Petra and Oliver, the supplier supervisors. Thomas invites them in. They calmly take a seat at the small meeting table and then, with a thieving grin on their faces, hand him their resignations.