THE FABRICATOR’S SIGNAL | ISSUE 8
Two returned pieces nearly cost a capable manager his job. The problem was not effort; it was an undefined outcome and deadline.
He was working on it. You just couldn’t see it from where you were standing.
A shop owner was ready to fire one of the best young managers I had encountered in a fabrication business. From the owner’s vantage point, the manager had ignored an urgent customer problem for a full day. The parts were still leaning against the wall. The customer was still waiting. The manager had not reported back.
The owner’s conclusion was simple: this guy does not care.
When he told me what he planned to do, I asked him to wait until I could find out what was happening. This manager had skills that were critical to our implementation. Losing him would not just create a vacancy. It could undermine the work the shop had already begun.
The owner agreed, reluctantly.
Two Returned Pieces and One Urgent Promise
A contract installer had brought back two pieces from a recent job that needed to be corrected. He leaned them against a wall near the roll-up door and told the saw operator what was wrong. The handoff stopped there.
Days later, the customer called to ask when the kitchen would be finished. Someone promised tomorrow. The owner learned about the problem, told the young manager to fix it, and expected a report back.
A day later, the pieces appeared to be exactly where they had been. The owner saw no progress and heard no update.
I went to the shop and asked the manager about them.
What followed was one of the most thorough debriefs I have received on a shop-floor problem. He had traced the failed handoff from the installer to the saw operator and confirmed that no one else knew the pieces had been returned or what was wrong with them. He had learned that this was not the first time returned work had entered the shop without a clear process.
“And are you fixing the problem?” I asked.
Yes. He had written a new intake process for returned pieces. He had identified a specific staging area so returns could not disappear into the shop. He had created a documentation standard so the next person would know what was wrong, who owned the next step, and what the customer had been promised. The immediate pieces were already being remade.
He was not ignoring the problem. He was solving both the customer’s problem and the system problem that had allowed it to happen.
Can you imagine firing him?
The Owner and Manager Heard Different Assignments
The owner saw an unhappy customer, idle parts, and a promise at risk. When he said, “Fix it,” he meant: get the parts remade, contact the customer, and recover the job today.
The manager heard a different assignment: find out why returned work can sit unnoticed and build a process that prevents the failure from recurring. That work required investigation, a designated location, documentation, and new expectations for the team.
They were responding to the same event, but they were solving different problems on different timelines. Neither definition of the work was unreasonable. The failure was that the owner never made the two outcomes or their deadlines explicit, and the manager never closed the loop by saying what he was doing and when the owner would hear back.
We use DiSC with clients to test our own communication assumptions and, when useful in management training or executive coaching, to give individuals and teams a shared language for development. In this case, their DiSC styles helped explain why the gap felt so large. The owner had a strong D style, which prioritizes immediate results and action. The manager showed strong S and C tendencies, which place more weight on support, stability, accuracy, and quality. DiSC did not excuse the missed communication. It helped them see why the same two words, “fix it,” had produced two different plans.
Delegate the Recovery and the System Fix
Think about the last time you told someone to “handle it” or “take care of that” and then became frustrated because nothing seemed to happen.
Did you define the visible outcome you needed? Did you give a specific time for the next update? Did you separate today’s customer recovery from this week’s process improvement?
A clearer instruction would have sounded like this:
“I need those two pieces in the production queue today, and I need the customer called by 3:00. Send me an update when both are done. Then come back to me by Friday with your recommendation for how returned work should be received, documented, and assigned.”
Now the manager knows there are two jobs. The first is to recover the customer commitment. The second is to improve the system. Each has an owner, an outcome, a deadline, and a communication point.
This is useful no matter which behavioral styles are involved. A fast-moving manager can act without guessing. A methodical manager can protect quality without leaving the owner blind. The owner can see progress before the whole problem is finished.
Clarity Protects Good Managers
Your shop needs people who move quickly when a promise is at risk. It also needs people who investigate root causes, document the work, and prevent the same failure from returning. You should not have to choose between those strengths.
What you cannot afford is to leave urgency, ownership, and “done” undefined, then judge people against expectations you never made visible.
The manager in this story was building a return process, protecting the customer, and addressing the next failure before it happened. He was doing valuable management work. The owner simply could not see enough of it soon enough.
When you delegate the next urgent problem, define what must happen now, what should improve next, and when you expect to hear back. That clarity turns two words into an executable assignment. It also keeps a capable manager from looking indifferent when he is already doing the work you need.
Rick Phelps is a principal at Synchronous Solutions, which helps stone fabrication leaders build businesses with dependable delivery, healthier profit, and teams that can carry the work forward.
The Fabricator’s Signal is published by Mark Phelps and Rick Phelps of Synchronous Solutions.
