A seller posted on a forum: Fellow cross-border e-commerce colleagues, let’s talk about what you think an incompetent manager looks like?
Share the responses of several sellers. The following content comes from: Knowing everything
I am not very talented, but I have been in this industry for more than two years and have encountered many pitfalls in leadership. So here are some characteristics of incompetent managers:
First, focus on theory rather than practice. Some managers are not interested in practice, but spend most of their energy copying some systems and forms from books and using them in the team. Little do they know that using theories that cannot be combined with reality will only backfire.
Second, attitude is more important than ability. Some managers always emphasize the attitude of employees (for example, they will ask them why they left work so early), but they don’t delve into the underlying reasons behind their poor attitudes. They keep emphasizing that “attitude determines everything”, but they don’t care about improving their employees’ abilities. They don’t even have any investment budget to help them improve their abilities. They just hope to make their employees become “suicide squads”.
Third, people tend to focus on shortcomings rather than strengths. This is a reality. Good managers magnify employees’ strengths, avoid their shortcomings, and assign the right people to the right positions. Incompetent managers focus on employees’ shortcomings, ignore their strengths, and always find faults instead of managing.
Fourth, emphasize results without other things. Some managers only focus on results, claiming to be result-oriented, but ignore the skills, behaviors, methods and key work that affect results of employees. In fact, this is a behavior of "giving up management" and a manifestation of incompetence of managers. Focusing on results and grasping the process is the right approach.
Fifth, always rewarding "bad guys"
In the team, there are a small number of people who come out to "make trouble" every now and then, and managers focus most of their energy on appeasing these "troublemakers". The main means they take is to agree to some of these people's requests to make them quiet - this actually forms a management method that rewards "bad guys". This will cause the "bad guys" in the team to become more aggressive and unscrupulous, and the good guys will see that the "bad guys" get more benefits, and gradually "become bad" themselves.
Then the OP might ask, why are incompetent managers always promoted?
As in war and politics, the answer lies in human nature. Unless companies are run entirely by cold, heartless numbers and controlled by robots, when it comes to promotions, ability and results will always be influenced by personal feelings and biases.
So, it is important to know yourself well and figure out where you will thrive best. If you are very independent and opinionated, look for a results-oriented job. If you are very sociable or likable, go to a large company.
Because it is meaningless to feel frustrated or look down on others. Ultimately, we have to understand the nature of workplace competition.
Let me tell you about it. I have been working for more than four years and have changed jobs many times. There is only one boss that I have followed the longest and who is the most unforgettable. I followed him for two years. He started in 2013 and never managed the company. The bosses who entered the industry at the same time are already big names in the industry. I joined the company in the middle of 2019. I had nothing and did everything myself. From brand registration to various store authorizations, I opened them one by one. At that time, I only had more than a year of experience. I didn't have much experience, so I just crossed the river by feeling the stones and tried to find a way to solve the problem. At the beginning, product selection and listing were all good. I have no complaints.
But later on, we discovered that there were problems. The boss who told us that he was very rich showed his displeasure when I talked about the promotion expenses. It seemed that since I came, I should use my own methods to build the store. At the beginning, the store was okay. In the first month, we launched several products and achieved sales of 7,000 to 8,000 yuan, with considerable profits. Then the off-season came. I didn’t understand the market and of course had no training. I encountered a lot of problems in the auto parts business, such as adaptability, installation, and various other problems. So there was a product gap. Sales plummeted. The boss began to complain.
Naturally, I did not dare to neglect it. I quickly arranged the four-wheel drive products and pushed them forward. The epidemic also broke out. Conflicts began to arise because the freight increased and delivery became a big problem. This boss told us all day long that the company had no money and could not make money. The atmosphere in the office was terrible. One after another left, and came and went. No one in the office could see hope. Every day, I heard the boss say that he was going bankrupt. Going out for team building and singing K, a fruit plate, a pot of tea, cool, singing until I was really exhausted, and I hurried out to drink water after the end. Every employee has no sense of security and belonging, and they are all thinking about when they will leave. Talking about when they will leave. But the boss means that you still haven't made money for me, how can I build a team for you. At the beginning, the company insisted on air express delivery to replenish new products in time. Later, I proposed to go by sea, because the product is heavy and air transportation basically loses money. But the boss thought that sea transportation was unsafe and didn't let me go. That's fine. I thought it would be easier for me to prepare goods. But I didn't expect that I would suffer a heavy loss later. You asked me to ship by sea and asked me why I didn't. I was speechless. I said I had proposed it before, but you refused. Then you said, I was a little scared at first, you could have told me more. Oh my God, I guess I'm in a relationship, it's so complicated.
At the beginning, I chose this company because it is an integrated industry and trade company and can develop new products. As a result, there are no new products at the beginning. All the products are old products, even old products that others have put out a few years ago. It is not easy to launch new products. The rhythm of barley, the first batch of shipments is more than ten boxes, and the fast pace is fighting. We are a month or even longer than others to put them on the shelves. In the first batch, there are more than ten in a box. After they are sold out, they are replenished. Then a few months later, they say, you see, this barley model sells very well, why do we have so few orders, dear salt friends, can you tell me why I don’t have orders. It’s not just this model, but all models are like this, one box, a few boxes of replenishment, out of stock, replenishment, and then out of stock. Then I heard the boss say that I was losing money so hard, I didn’t dare to say it in my heart. But I have been working hard for so long in the development of wasteland, and I really feel bad.
There is also damaged goods. The return rate of auto parts is relatively high. The returned products are also of high value. What should I do? They asked me to find someone on FB to sell them. How much discount can I get? 20% discount on the original price. Are you kidding? The off-site order needs 50% discount. They asked me to sell damaged products at 20%. They also asked me to chat with others and make a deal. I can do B2B. Wouldn’t it be more fun to chat? Later, this kind of thing also died out when they didn’t renew our VPN. When it comes to VPN, it’s even funnier. They asked my colleague to buy VPN. That day in the office, they asked my colleague how much money he had. We all thought he would be reimbursed, but he said, fortunately it’s not expensive.
Do you think this is the end? There is more to come. A female colleague was on probation. Because her work did not meet the standards, the boss directly educated her in front of everyone. After that, the girl had a strong self-esteem and hid in the toilet and cried for half an hour. Later, the atmosphere in the whole office was really miserable. Basically, everyone was doing small tricks and no one would look at the boss. And this is the nth time she has done this in the office.
There were more, but it was finally my turn to leave. I couldn’t help it after I came back after the Chinese New Year and submitted my resignation. On the surface, they respected my choice and asked me what I thought. I honestly said that these products had reached a bottleneck and there was no way to break through. They also clearly stated how to make money and profit, and that they had to ship by sea. During the handover period, I had planned to ship by air and connect the inventory by sea one month later, but something even funnier happened. They told me that my commission only counted the current payment, not the account, because we used to calculate it based on sales. As a result, they used this trick on me. In fact, it’s not much if you calculate it this way. The commission is only a few hundred yuan if you calculate the account balance, but I did it, so why didn’t they give it to me? I couldn’t understand it, and I was too lazy to bother with it for a moment. I thought about preparing the inventory for them one month later, so I directly made up for the air shipment. I didn’t do sea shipping, but I still wrote down conscientiously that I would prepare this batch of inventory or it would be out of stock, and I made a good handover.
Do you think it's over? Not yet. I left work at 6 o'clock on the day I resigned. His eyes were strange. You know, I was the one who had followed him the longest and built the Amazon of this company. After I left, he asked my colleagues to work overtime that night, saying that he was afraid that I would do something tricky and take his money. My apprentice told me this later. He said that he had secretly told him to work overtime to change the account. Is it necessary? If I want to mess with you, it won't take a minute, not to mention that it's an account that I have built up myself.
Did you think that resignation was the end? You were too young. It was more than a month or two after resignation. He didn’t hire anyone, and the shipments didn’t keep up. When the peak season came, the goods were out of stock. It had nothing to do with me at first, but what was even funnier was that he told my apprentice that it was my fault again because I didn’t help him with the shipments.
Of course, it’s not over yet. The product words infringed and GBC sued me. I lost more than 100,000 yuan. My apprentice told me that he suspected that I left it and deliberately made fun of him because there were traces of me in the store. When I heard this, I laughed. I was the only one who managed the two stores for most of the two years. Is it strange to have traces of me? Hahahaha. It’s so interesting. As expected of someone I have been with for two years, I have become an operator that he will never forget.
