“He really respected the manager.” Michael Scott spoke this of his stepfather Jeff when they went to a baseball game and the manager of the team they were cheering for, controversially, took the pitcher off the mound. Michael recalled this during a counseling session with Toby. Upon hearing this story, Toby thought he might have learned a bit about Michael’s background and his need to be in leadership and to be liked.
What’s ironic is that Michael Scott, the Scranton’s Regional Manager for Dunder Mifflin Paper Co., from a business perspective, is a horrible manager. Much of the humor in the entire series’s storyline comes from how Michael Scott allows (or even directly causes) so much (sometimes fire-able) unprofessionalism, distraction and counter-productivity to occur in his office branch due to irrelevant issues in his or another’s personal life. There’s occasionally some bright spots, but Michael Scott’s overall administrative and relationship leadership skills are atrocious. Likely promoted from salesman as a reward for landing a key client, manager Michael Scott is quite unmanageable. It was mostly his subordinates (e.g. Pam, Jim, Toby, etc.) who had to step up and keep the emotional and business functionality of the office intact. One could make the argument, however, that Michael had matured into a more capable manager by the time he was about to leave the company.
So, the best management seen in the series was by those who best managed the unmanageable Michael Scott, whether from corporate or his own subordinates. (Even though the position of Michael’s direct supervisor had more turnover than Hogwarts’ Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts in Harry Potter). Because, despite his lack of administrative skills and overall professionalism, his sales ability (and especially his connections in Scranton) are unprecedented and seemingly vital to the whole company’s well-being.
Jan Levinson, Michael’s first direct supervisor in the series, realized his sales ability after he landed the government of all of Lackawanna County as the company’s new client. She was a more gracious superior to Michael’s antics, but the repressed issues of her personal life eventually cost her her job. Ryan Howard, the young pseudo-salesman with an MBA who became her surprising successor, tried to enforce (almost with a vendetta) more professionalism and productivity in the branch, along with many unwanted methodical changes across the board. The failure and scandal of his project, the new company website, resulted in his termination. Then Charles Miner, from Saticoy Steel, came into the office like an impersonal and ignorant drill sergeant, not acknowledging/utilizing the employees‘ various strengths and weakness and offending Michael out of the company, after which he started his own paper supplier business, vengefully utilizing his knowledge of his now ex-employer and his connections in Scranton to steal many clients. David Wallace, a newer CFO for Dunder Mifflin, had several periods for supervising Michael while his direct supervisor position was vacant. Later, when Dunder Mifflin was purchased by Sabre, its Founder/CEO Jo Bennett and branch liaison Gabe Lewis seemed to have good balanced leadership to let Michael do what he does best: train the sales team, and get out of the way of everything else.
So, whoever best managed Michael Scott saw the most profit and business success, and that very much required the gifts of grace and maximization to best utilize the diverse gifts from a diverse group of people, selling paper to a diverse group of clients in diverse places.
Such grace and maximization is rare good management, and it’s key to success. It reminds me about Paul’s illustration of the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12-26). Why try to make an eye do what an ear does? Why try to live without a sense of smell?
We ought to see such grace and maximization more in business, church and even family leadership.
Next: Religion (and a Lot Else) is Misunderstood
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