Learning Through Experience

I never realized how much I was doing wrong until I sat through the first of my Introduction to Management classes. Not that the point of the class is to make us realize what we are doing incorrectly, rather it is designed to teach us the basic skills that we need to become good managers. I was lucky enough to obtain approximately a year’s worth of managerial experience before starting classes at the CIA last August and I’ll be the first to say that it was no easy task.

There were many problems that I dealt with during the course of my management, some of which I have learned to put a name to in class. Trying to avoid being a boomerang manager was probably the hardest of my tasks when I was supervising. This was partly due to the fact that I was only supervising two or three days a week and the other three days I was working as an hourly employee with the servers that I supervised. When you work with the people you supervise, it becomes quite a challenge not to fall back into that comfort zone. I admit, I was a boomerang manager some of the time. I would jump back into service to help out when the dining room was busy or someone had called off. I didn’t realize at first that it was bad managerial practice and that I should have instead been delegating tasks to complete the necessary work.

Although I did commit this managerial blunder, I slowly began to figure out that delegating tasks made the whole operation run more smoothly and ensured that I had more time to observe the practices of the servers and talk with the residents about their comments and concerns. This practice of delegating wasn’t something that I was taught, but rather something that I learned through continuous trial and error. My example simply goes back to what we were told in class about hands on managerial experience being the real way to learn. I was also young and wanted respect from the servers I was supervising. I wanted them to like me, but at the same time I had to wield enough authority to properly manage the dining room. Again, this was difficult to manage because I was the same age, and in some cases, younger than the people I was supposed to be in charge of. I did my best to balance being a friend and being the supervisor, although I found that even when I wasn’t supervising, the servers were always more careful not to cut corners if I was working with them.

I also found that Theory Y applied to most of the servers at the retirement community in which I worked. They wanted to do a good job; however most of them needed a little guidance or a gentle reminder to keep them on task. These were the servers that I had the easiest time managing. They went about doing their jobs properly and asked questions when they were unsure of the proper procedures. There were the also occasional few that can be found in most restaurants- those with minimal motivation and a desire to do as little as they could possibly get away with. At first, I tried to approach them with the same manner that I used for the competent servers. I quickly learned that it was better to be firm and ridiculously clear about what I wanted them to do, rather than to attempt to gently convince them that they ought to do their jobs according to the standards that they were taught. Again, I learned through trial and error. I am thankful for this opportunity because I will always remember the trials I faced during my first managerial experience. In the food service industry, a year is simply the blink of an eye. I gained a great deal of knowledge; however every management class reminds me of how much there is still to learn.