Bob Carpenter gave us a -
> Personal Pledge to Those Who Work With Me
This offering is one of the very finest expressions of what a boss owes to
juniors that I have had the pleasure of reading. Making this Pledge come
true would surely resolve most difficulties associated with sustaining the
viability of any company or group as well as making easy the
implementation of LO, BPR, TQM or whatever. I commend Bob for the very
high quality of this Pledge. Most bosses and people in general are far too
busy criticizing others to spend the time necessary to improve their own
performance to the level which is reflected in Bob's Pledge.
I would like to add a specific aspect to this pledge, that of leading
every person away from conforming or following (being extrernally
directed) to being strong and independent (being internally directed). My
experience shows that the vast majority of people tend more toward
conformance than toward independence due to their upbringing. Conforming
wastes a tremendous amount of time and effort while independent thinking
wastes no time or effort and thus is far more productive and a great deal
more creative/innovative.
So here are the specifics.
Bob stated -
> A. I understand in advance that:
>
> 1. Good or bad morale, does not well up from below, it is managements
> sole responsibility.
I would say -
Although bosses can affect the morale of their juniors, they
cannot buy a pound of morale. Morale is very similar to attitude and
each person must realize that their own attitude or morale is far too
important to leave to the vagaries of what a boss or the weather or
a fellow worker or life in general can produce. With high morale you
can accomplish anything and with low morale you can't do anything.
Therefore, I as boss will help you to make and maintain your morale
and attitude in a very high state so that you will be forever in
control of it. We won't let your desires to be as good as you can be,
at work and at home, be thwarted by events or the actions of others.
Bob stated -
> 3. Will incite your ideas on every aspect of the business, whatever your
> responsibility.
I would add that this place of work is just as much yours as it is
mine and we will all sink or swim together. In view of that, I will
make certain that I never make a change which will affect you in any
way without giving you a chance to understand the problem or the
opportunity and exactly what all the facts are. After you get that, I
will ensure that you get a chance to comment on any plan to address
this problem or opportunity, iteratively if necessary before any
implementation is directed.
In addition, I will give you the chance at group meetings to voice
any complaint, suggestion or question you may have and I will ensure
that you are satisfied with the answer to the best of my ability
before considering the issue closed. This is your workplace and you
are a most valued team member. Without full knowledge of what is
going on and why, you will not be an effective team member and I will
protect your right to membership at all costs.
Bob stated -
> D. In exchange for the above environment, I expect you to:
>
> 1. Make decisions based on a, "If this organization were mine."
> philosophy.
This quid pro quo is not necessary in my experience, but it is an
interesting tact. I would restate #1 to be -
Decide what you are going to do and why you are going to do it based
on your own value standards and not on what you think I or the
company would want. This is just as much your company as it is mine
and I believe that you care about its survival just as much as I. So
don't try to figure out what a boss wants or conform to what you see
others doing. For each thing that you do, you figure out how it
should be done correctly and do it that way. I will either back you
up or if I believe that you could use a higher standard of a certain
value or do it differently to achieve excellence then I will try to
help you to understand that. I will not criticize you or second guess
you about what you should have done. We learn the most from our
errors and we must take advantage of that, not worry about it. If the
consequences of failure are very high, it is my job to back you up by
knowing before you act that what you plan to do will not fail badly.
If you can foresee significant consequences, tell me what your plan
is ahead of time unless you are sure from previous experience that
your way will not fail. We are all members of a team and we owe this
to each other. When I screw up, and I will, I expect you to tell me
that I did, so that I can learn from my errors. I know that I am
responsible to you for tools, planning, training, materials,
policies, direction and the like and I am sure that I will too often
make your job harder than it should be. I apologize for these, but
you must tell me of the ones which bother you so I can fix them.
I don't want you doing poor work or being inefficient because of me
and I will correct my errors just as I know that you will correct
yours.
There are other aspects to changing conformists into strong and
independent team players, but this post is already too long.
Thanks again to Bob. Regards, Joan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joan Pomo The Finest Tools for Managing People
Simonton Associates Based on the book
jpomo@gate.net "How to Unleash the Power of People"
--"jpomo@gate.net" <jpomo@gate.net>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>