Michael Erickson <sysengr@atc.boeing.com> makes a passionate
plea for honesty and standing up for the truth:
>As a corporate cartoonist-who got my position because I
>successfully "told the truth" about a situation-I have to speak
>up about this "honesty vs what people want to hear" issue.
>snip snip
>a certain manager saw his role as the one who had to "ARTICULATE
>FORCEFULLY" the visions, ideas and concepts his people
>generated or discovered.
>
>This morning I woke up to the fact that I have that same role.
>
>While the risk of losing my job has loomed over me on occasion, I'm
>finding that I lead others simply by articulating what to me is only
>obvious. The company has admitted it must change or risk corporate
>death. It's proposed that we all as employees have a part to play
>snip snip
>The main idea though is-Honesty has got to win. I have to "gentle it"
>a bit sometimes, and I have to respect individual human differences, so I
>don't get nasty with my drawings (aka. political satyre), but cartoons
>show the pain, express the fears, hopes and challenges, the use of
>metaphor or analogy helps us understand the new thing we can't quite
>get our minds around, by comparing it to some thing we do know something
>about.
Michael, I am pleased that your approach is working. There are a couple of
key observations pasted in above: your approach seems to use humour to get
the point across - this can be very effective and is not a threat.
The company recognizes a crisis - this expands tolerance to drama in
action.
My point is that whatever works in a situation is useful but cannot be
copied in another without accounting for subtle differences. If your
management has concluded they must empower people to survive, your chances
for honesty are better than if "they" are still convinced that they must
find the answers, for example.
Thanks for a refreshing story...Keith
--Keith Cowan <72212.51@CompuServe.COM>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>