Penny D Miller

Winning the War for Profit Penny D Miller

My very first job (other than babysitting) was as a supervisor. I had never worked in any organization, and really had little clue what I was getting into. But I went from a full-time college student to a commissioned officer in the United States Air Force, responsible for running a work center at 22 years of age. Fortunately for me, I was in the military. If there is any organization in the United States that has paid attention to developing leaders, it is the military. I am thankful that that is where I learned to lead. Even more importantly from my perspective, the military understands that leadership at that very first rung of the management ladder is critical to operational success and doesn't stint on preparing and training the people they assign to these vital jobs. I was assigned an NCO who was responsible for training me. I didn't know much about the military and less about leading people, but I was smart enough to know I didn't know anything. I was fortunate to serve with some great non-commissioned officers who did their best to train up "the butterbar" in a way that has served me well in the years since, and to start my career with a few officer mentors that did their best to teach me the ropes. You'll see the influence of the military in the approach I take to developing supervisors. Most civilian organizations throw their new supervisors into the deep end of the pool. If the new supervisor manages to dog paddle fast enough, long enough, he'll survive. If he doesn't, the organization will pick the next person and toss her in-and they'll continue that process until they get at least satisfactory success. It's a brutal, haphazard, and ineffective approach to choosing, training, and supporting people who really are the key to organizational success. If you want to have a high-performance organization, you can't afford to overlook your supervisors. Overall, the process is relatively straightforward. That doesn't mean it's easy or foolproof, but we can greatly improve our success with just a few processes, providing we are conscientious about implementing them and tenacious about seeing them through. That's why I wrote this little book. I hope organizations will harvest the benefits of having the right people with the right skills in these critical positions, and that fewer supervisors will fail in their new roles.