Judging from comments, some must have
found the original post “interesting”. Hoped to amuse people.
On a serious note, I would like to expand
on my management practices. In one of my college classes, the textbook author
discussed, “The Industrial Law of Effect”. This was in the 1960’s and I have
long since forgotten the author and book title.
The author may have been inspired by the classic, Law of Effect.
As modified, the author said that in any organization,
the employees will intuitively learn what management’s dominant desire is, not
expressed desire, and give it to them.
As an illustration, a bank teller is rude to a customer knowing management’s dominant desire was for the teller’s till balance
exactly each day. Rude to a customer? Tsk, tsk. Till not balance? Look for
another job. I’ve forgotten a lot from those classes but that has stuck with me
over the years.
Tank’s variation. You better damn well
know what you want in very specific terms or you will have a bunch of unhappy
and unproductive employees. In the case of the skylight firm, I wanted a
quality product produced on time with minimum waste and rework. On a personal
level, I didn’t expect, or want, anyone to kiss my ass.
As stated, I hired and promoted on
ability. My usual crew had many people others wouldn’t hire. Within the day to
day operation, I wouldn’t stand for cliques. Every employee’s dignity was to be
respected. Should I walk by the break room and see employees being shunned or
ignored (not included in the lunch group) you can believe the foremen/women
would soon have an unpleasant closed door meeting in my office. That policy
extended to the occasional “temp”. They may be with us for a short time but
their impressions, as communicated to their social circles, would persist for
weeks or longer.
One example of how this worked. We had an
order for 10,000 residential DIY type skylights from Pay n Pac Stores (since
acquired by Lowe’s). We had exactly three returned as defective and it was
clear they had been dropped.
The skylight company owner was an
absentee type from “Cali” who was involved with “the industry”. In other words
he was financing art films and the like. Soon he sold out to a large company whose
main business was suspended ceiling systems. Their management soon started
trying to make my square peg operation fit their round holes. Never understood
that. If you have highly productive square pegs, make some square holes. Worse,
everything they did was fucked up and needed reworked. As an example, they
provided a ceiling system for an Alaska State Ferry without ever insuring the
ceiling panels met USCG requirements. I had to pull my crew off our work and
spend six weeks redoing the ferry during winter layup in Seattle. Oh yah, the
ferry was also the winter hotel for ferry employees. My folks did a great job
to the point the ferry employees invited them to their Christmas party. Super
party. Several Seattle Bondsmen had a good week.
I could see the writing on the wall. Got
a chance to work the season putting in modular condos in Kodiak so we parted
ways. Other than the usual brown bottle flu, the Kodiak job went well. The old
military P’s. Prior planning prevents piss poor performance.
Once had a boss that taught me many
valuable lessons. He was an asshole’s asshole but when you put your ass on the
line every day you earned his respect. One lesson. “ We have procedures for 90%
of our business. This is so we don’t reinvent the wheel every week. The way we
handle the other 10% is the difference between a profitable business and a bureaucracy.
As long as I’m running this place, it
will never be a bureaucracy”. He was a recovering Boeing engineer with a
Harvard MBA.
Over the years my methods didn’t make me
many friends. What I can look back with some satisfaction is the respect given
to me by several individuals whose accomplishments in business far over shadow
mine. Always, I prefer to be respected more than liked.
