Musings

Still reading my book on Enlightened Capitalism, and they had a part at the end of the chapter on Lincoln Electric where they asked some MBA students and senior corporate managers why other managers don't adopt it. I'll probably do a longer post with my take on their suggestions (some seem outright wrong. Not necessarily in what potential imitators think, but that I disagree with anyone who believes it), though that might wait until I actually finish the book. (I've been on call this week and have been reluctant to get sucked into a book. Plus I prefer to read a chapter or two of this one at a time.)

I'll probably also discuss the labor perspective (unions apparently have objections too), but I'm still mulling that over. I'm curious about the other examples. 

Instead I want to explore some of my other thoughts. Because I've mentioned before, it seems like the larger problem is that too many people just don't think it's possible.

I suppose this ties into two more grandiose metas I've considered.

The first is this notion that things might work for one group (ie that certain nations, or workers in a region are somehow harder workers than others. Or better at quality. Sort of like the way we - ie US soldiers who pride themselves on professionalism) look down on the Iraqi or Afghan allies who weren't reliable in gunfights.

This view is complete and utter bullshit. (and it really wasn't all that long ago that our own forces were a bunch of undisciplined yahoos.)

While there are definitely cultural differences, and I don't want to make it sound like I'm glossing that over, people are people. Anywhere you go. And their motivations are not that hard.

I don't mean we all want to be doctors or CEOs or anything like that. The details are extremely individualistic, and one person might work hard for an incentive that another feels 'meh' about. But they generally will put in the work for the incentives they care about.

So part of leadership is identitying those incentives.

I've talked before about internal and external incentives, and I'll also say this - people care a lot more about the internal incentives. They may do the work for external incentives (bonuses, etc) but that's kind of more like bribery. You get people phoning it in for the healthcare, or money, but it's not the same.

Furthermore, people want to feel like they're serving some greater purpose. That's part of what Jim Collins got at with his business books on what makes a business great. The businesses offer a sense of purpose and meaning. (This is probably why do many corporations offer mission statements, though many seem more like a check-the-box thing than a true driving force. Hence quite a bit of the cynicism about them.)

People want to feel heard, that their concerns matter, and that what they do matters. (Caveat - some of this also leads to pressure to become workaholics, which creates a backlash and gets people talking about work-life balance. That's not okay. But the desire to feel like you are doing your thing, and doing it well... To be a master of your field, whatever that field may be, is motivating. And I think James Lincoln is entirely correct in his belief that "the world's greatest untapped resources are the abilities of millions of undereducated men and women trapped in social systems and work organizations in which they had no opportunity to develop, or exercise, their potential." The people busting themselves physically to pick orders, walking on hard warehouse floors in steel toed boots every day, counting out parts, lifting and carrying and packing them... They're all capable of more.

Our great failure is that there's not much opportunity for them to develop that. So most just collect their paycheck and find meaning elsewhere (taking care of their family, or a side hobby. Or church. Whatever it is that makes it worth giving up a large part of their day to work.

Anyways. People are people, and it does take a bit more work on management's part to create an organization that enables them to reach their full potential, but it's not impossible. (It's a bit like the effort it takes to create a system that teaches your subordinate ls how to decide what they can handle themselves and what they should kick upstairs to the boss. You're trying to teach them judgment. And it is work, but the payoff is that a) you don't have to deal with unnecessary things b) people are more motivated. They're empowered to make certain decisions and know that you trust them to do so and c) the things that do need escalated get quickly passed up to the appropriate decision maker. It's like that book on being a one minute manager.. You put the structure in place so that they mostly don't even need you.

Same diff. It's slightly different type of work, but pays off if you do it right. Working more at the initial stages of establishing the command climate and training your people, but less work in the long run since you can trust them to do their jobs. (also similar to the challenges of changing from being a micromanager and /or the type of manager who takes the easy route of giving tasks only to your proven good employees, and thus never developing the rest of your team. Thus leading to burnout, resentment, substandard performance, and probably high turnover as well.) 

Still, even though I firmly believe that the belief that concerns your front line workers can't be trusted is more a reflection of bad management than the workers themselves (there are numerous examples in this book of capitalists turning around very typical working class towns and making them high performers. Same people, just better managed) that's not the real problem. 

Which circles back to belief. 

I'm not sure how to explain the next bit. It's kind of like a theory, but I'm not really sure how you'd collect evidence for it. A belief? Supposition? 

It's also caught up in my personal upbringing, and it probably goes a bit too much into Catholic beliefs for people outside that. I've touched on it before, but here goes. 

If people are people, and my experiences with the 'I got mine, how you do' way of thinking are commonplace... How and why do so many people think differently? 

Why did I spend most of my life around people that don't think that way at all? 

Especially since, as I've said before, most people don't exactly use the free will we've been given. 

And if you read up on history, people have had that attitude everywhere. Perhaps even moreso in the past. The Italian mafia that developed because you couldn't trust strangers to be fair and honest (I'm not going to try looking for the sources on that right now). 

Part of the 'I got mine, how you do' attitude is perhaps not quite as selfish as it sounds at first, because it's more like - I got mine, for me and my people. My family, the people like me. But I don't owe you anything, and if I can rip you off I will. I'll take care of my buddies, my family, my clan. I'll give them the hookup, and I'll expect the same in return. But if you're not part of my circle and you've got nothing to offer? Forget about it. 

This, btw, is a large part of what the New Testament spoke against. Praising the Good Samaritan, who was an outsider. Not one of us. 

So I kind of think that people started changing, not so much because of logic and persuasion and a clear argument about the benefits (to society and ourselves) of treating every human being with dignity and respect, but because somehow Jesus and his disciples convinced a large group of people to have faith. 

To practice loving thy neighbor out of faith. 

And somehow enough people got on board with the idea that we can see some of those tangible benefits. 

Anyways. I don't know that I could make any sort of logical argument as to why shareholders, CEOs, and other corporate leaders are complete and utter short-sighted fools if they don't do a better job of treating ALL their employees with decency and respect. 

Given how many of them are conservative, and while I don't have the numbers I presume they claim to be Christian, you wouldn't think that I had to. 

But if enough of them had faith that it was true, and seriously acted on that faith, we probably would have more businesses like Lincoln Electric.