Dan, this has concerned me as well. If Mr. Skinner's technical authority is being in any way second-guessed by Mr. McKay's , I wonder what Skinner's morale is like! Of course this may be my simplistic worry - I'm only worrying in the absence of fly-on-the-wall facts. Maybe he welcomes the help, who knows? Hope so....
Actually, while we're on the topic of morale and "procedural manuals", I have to say that I am always a little nervous when nerdy "process engineers" (with the de rigeur below-average social skills -- present company excepted!) take it upon themselves to write down procedures for (living, breathing, occasionally non-rational) people. [I was trained as a clinical psychologist and had coursework in industrial + organizational psych.] The scorn workers may have for supervisors (very recently discussed here) will readily attach itself to a poorly-designed (from a people POV) "procedural manual". I worked in a small data & software company where precisely this unintended opposite result appeared. I would like to urge Mr. McKay to remember to a) consider the individuals as a very different class of "objects" among those things-that-do-things in the process, and b) include those individuals directly in the planning and production of that manual. Both will help facilitate ownership and empowerment of the job and encourage buy-in on the goals (and thus reduce alienation).
For the same reasons, I would like to also suggest we discourage discussion here regarding the topic of "incompetence" at the mill. Even if it were the case, using this public forum to indict non-specifically will only be hurtful to the mill workers generally and thus can serve no good purpose. Criticize management, if you must, for they are responsible for the selection, training and supervision of the workers. |
