The Big Team

Yet again, I failed to keep my employees happy. We were getting ready for the second annual SweetFest so I called a meeting, inviting both my morning baker and my assistant to lunch. I really wanted to be tough, since I felt I was always too nice, so I came down hard insisting on both of them working the event, making Sugar a priority over any of their personal lives. Needless to say, it backfired and my assistant quit over the weekend. I definitely think abrupt changes are a sure sign of weakness in leader.

I spent a couple of weeks baking alone, then began crafting a plan for a new team. I hired two very experienced bakers at a little higher wage and put them to the challenge to help bring Sugar to the next level. They shared the responsibility of the morning scone bake, which was good for me because I could get better rest. In some way, I don’t think it was entirely fair for me to delegate the grunt work. I guess it didn’t feel like I was a team player, but then again I was supposed to be the leader and keep the vision of the company shining bright, a task I couldn’t do while waking up at 4am.

I really tried to let go of the stronghold I had on the bakery and let the two professionals I had hired take care of all the daily tasks. I was a bit frustrated with our consistency and the quality seemed to be slipping, but we did have probably the best product lineup Sugar has seen. We just had to get our act together and stabilize production so that I could get out and do some sales to support our new staff.

But lurking in the background we heard comments that we had more staff than the catering company. My staff were feeling uncomfortable doing dishes in front of their chef, who seemed to be searching for reasons to criticize them. I was trying my hardest to be respectful of the shared space, but I could feel the tension mounting. Finally, after a month of hearing a rumor, they let me know that I had 4 months to move out. That was very gracious of them to offer me so much time to find a new space, and I’m very thankful for that. Still, the news left me feeling very uneasy because I didn’t have much faith in Sugar’s ability to move forward, which left me in fear that we’d have to move backward.

This feeling of imminent failure put a cloud of doom over my usually optimistic personality. I started to be scared and I cut back my staff’s hours which was really unfair to them, and so after a few weeks, they both quit. I completely understand how they must have felt, and here I was, yet again, on my own with the business.