It's the Little Things LO9107

Michael Erickson (sysengr@atc.boeing.com)
Wed, 14 Aug 1996 07:48:54 -0700 (PDT)

Replying to LO9074 --

Hello All.
I could not agree more with the post by J C Howell, re: walking in
"their" shoes... Reminds me of the best example of that principle in
action from my own life.

In the may late teens and early 20's I spent a few summers as a staff
member of a small church run summer camp. Gil Goethals, The director of
this camp (being a minister) did something I hadn't seen up to that point.
A. Being that he had difficulties getting adult staff members to work
at the camp, (it was an all unpaid volenteer effort that lasted a in the
summer, when everyone who has a regular job is trying to get their
vacation time), so he used teen agers as councilors and instructors.

B. Gil trusted them(us) to take on the responsibility. He would run a
staff meeting every night if he had to, in order to explain to his teen
staff how to handle their jobs. Not harranging them into better
performance but rather, giving simple explanations about how to inspire,
motivate and encourage the children they cared for and help them see the
world how their parents see things (THESE KIDS ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!)

C. He got his hands dirty. He never asked us to do what he wasn't
willing to do, and it was a sure bet you could find him running the
Hobart machine and washing pots and pans with the camp cooks in the
evening, then getting up at 4 am to take a dorm full of young kids out on
Puget Sound to try and catch ling cod and salmon. He would run the work
crews in preparation for the camp (I've helped him pour concrete and
repair olde plumbing) and he was the last to leave after the site
cleanup/packup. (we were on a small island, so clean up involved hauling
tons of boxes to the dock and loading lots of boats.)

What Mr. G got from all of us was our respect and our willingness to do
what ever it took to run the camp-to the point that when he was replaced by
another minister-who didn't know how to manage in this way-this same
staff rebelled violently, and the attrition rate was terrible. We knew
if we had a problem, or made a mistake, Gil Goethals would understand it and
help us out of the mess, and would make sure we got the lesson and remembered
it, but it was done from the point of view of helping us "grow up" not to
control us or drive us.

Since that time, I've employed as much of Mr. Goethals management
techniques as I can. I make sure I "get into my customers world", being
that I'm not in management, but I do have in house customers, I go to
them, try to understand things from their perspective, and work with them
on their terms, and it seems the relationship we have grows and improves
rather than just gets by.

The idea that you "gotta love the troops" no matter who those troops
might be is absolutely critical to being a "real" leader, or so my
experience says.

Thanks for the post J C Howell.
later...
Michael Erickson
sysengr@atc.boeing.com

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-- 

Michael Erickson <sysengr@atc.boeing.com>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>