Don't Make Me Turn This Car Around!

We heard it as kids, and vowed to NEVER say it to our own kids. Then we blurted it out as if we were pre-programmed to be our parents.

You know the scenario: poking, kicking, ‘make her stop’, ‘he’s looking at me’. And the response is, Don’t make me turn this car around!

So Mom makes a threat, and sometimes, makes good on that threat.

So when things are going sideways at the agency, management gets perturbed. Word of missed deadlines, warring factions over strategy, budgets are out of control, the client doesn’t review the ad until the day it’s due and has massive changes all percolates to the top.

The basic Blame Game. No one takes responsibility.

Management gets tired of this crap. And when you don’t take the initiative to fix it – like call the client and give them a hard due date, learn to compromise on a font treatment, or quit tweaking a job (and billing time to it) – then it’s your fault.

When it’s your fault and you just kick-back and go with the dysfunctional flow, the partners come up with *brilliant* ways to make the noise stop. And it’s usually not optimal. Just another layer of repairs over something that is broken.

Like spackle. Or Bondo. It's not optimal, but it covers the problem until the cracks grow and the metal rusts through.

All of those fantastic fixes that Managers, Directors, VPs and Partners throw out are an effort to do your job for you. They don’t know how to do your job, and I’ll bet you won’t like their way of fixing it.

But something has to be done.

Here’s the takeaway: If you don’t stop kicking your sister, Mom will take you home.
The VP of Operations will introduce a New Process. No questions asked. No ice cream.

Now go and fix your system. If you don’t know how, contact me. First call is free.