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To: seth thomas who wrote (10225)	4/7/1998 11:51:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Respond to of 14631

>>>CHAZ, I HATE TO BURST YOUR BUBBLE Don't worry yourself. You don't know enough to make any of my bubbles collapse. By the way, the use of caps is known on the internet as 'shouting', and is a sign of apoplectic collapse. >>>SOME OF THOSE FOLKS BROUGHT ON THEIR OWN MISERY, AND NEED TO TAKE A LITTLE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEMSELVES.<<< Exactly what Scrooge said to Bob Cratchett. You really do need to read some Dickens. So you can stop quoting his villains. Cheers, Chaz

To: seth thomas who wrote (10225)	4/8/1998 2:28:00 AM
From: Robert Graham	Respond to of 14631

Many of the shops that I have worked at had management that saw their employees as resources instead of people that they can invest in and treat as a "partner" in facilitating the company's success. Sure the company could not keep good people this way, but they were interested in just "getting the job done" which lead to many more "just getting the job done" tasks which were avoidable and in one case came down on the company like a house of cards. In the end, it jeopardized this company's future where I was called in to fix their substantial problems they had with their data processing during their prime earnings season. This was a book distributor in the middle of their Christmas season. It was a mess. The system would regularly crash, the network would be congested and unusable for long periods of time, and their main warehouse in TN was down. I worked allot of overtime and flew myself all around the country to their different warehouse locations for what added up to in one work week to be a 115 hour week. But I managed to get them up and running for the bulk of their Christmas business. Before I left, I saw that they were already managing themselves into the same problems. Amazing! This represented to me more of the typical small to medium sized business that uses computers as a tool required for the running of their business in a competitive marketplace. I have worked for many businesses, so I am not making these statements lightly. I talked to some of the better software developers that were there at this book distributor who were obviously unhappy. They felt "stuck" and were unwilling to take a risk to find a new job. This was before the current job market where the programmer is now in the driver's seat. They had families to support, which was a reason that was often given to me for their stay at this company. And it has been my experience that dysfunctional management as a side effect can help their employees feel dependant on their job and inadequate in terms of their ability to qualify for and garner a new higher paying job that they could be happier with. When I took over their data processing department for my interim position there, I placed emphasis on enabling the employee to think for themselves and encouraged them to take the initiative. It took some hand holding on my part, but the results were impressive. I do not see myself as the one who should be rewarded for this accomplishment. The people I had working for me were responsible for making my success possible. What I did as a manager to make a difference with them as the enabler was simple. However, I would not have been able to take a key role in helping the company survive through its Christmas season without this essential help from my employees. When another manager took over this position, the unthinking actions of the employees once again started to dominate daily life there. I see this as the morass having returned to the company which the employees get "stuck" in. After seeing employees "come alive" and think for themselves, just to see them return to "sleep walking" through their work day was a disconcerting sight to me. From this experience I find that it surprises me what a difference the manager can make on a group of employees. I have always believed this, but I have never seen the difference before in this way. I do not consider myself experienced enough at management to see myself as a good manager. But if I was able to make that difference, then a good manager should be able to make a tremendous difference in the lives of those employees which would enabling them to make a substantial difference to the company. I will never forget the time one of my senior employees came to me to say that this was the first time in a long time that he actually has started to look forward to coming to work. I was very surprised at his confession. I rarely have seen management have this type of impact on the employees of a company. But if I can do it, most any manager should be able to make the same difference. Now I have seen a disturbing trend. Instead of the company looking at their relationship with their employees differently in order to hire in and retain good workers with a focus on developing a long term relationship, they go for the "fix" which is to pay more and aquire consultants where it is not necessary to develop a long term relationship in order to receive good, experienced, hard working help. In a consulting relationship, there is no intention or requirement for long term relationship in order for the consulting relationship to work. You just are there as a consultant to "do" the work that is presented to you. Period. This is implicitly a very "black and white" type of relationship even though much more is still possible for the industrious person who knows how to manage a consulting relationship. The consultant is on their own, which is to be expected in such a relationship. However, this is not much different from the reality of many employee-employer relationships. Unfortunately, consulting relationships do not work for many people. Also the additional costs to the company I am sure gets passed on to their customer. You see, companies rarely change their method of operation unless it becomes essential to their survival, and furthermore there is someone like a CEO there to lead the company in that direction. Even then, the company as an entity will "discover" ways to retain inertia that moves them in their original direction that will predictably fail. A company can "fail" this way for many years and still manage to stay in business. So the breakdown of the employee-employer relationship that many of these companies helped engineer is being met with the same short term thinking with the more costly solution being the consultant. At least with a consulting relationship, there are more possibilites available for the consultant to find an equitable work relationship. But there are many more risks and responsibilities to this approach for both the consultant and the company. One set of problems is traded for another set of problems. No one really wins in the end in this situation except for the people who choose consulting as their preferred type of relationship with their employer. Perhaps many employees will end up being forced to make this choice when confronted with its alternative. This is why I have chosen to work as a consultant. I am also finally receiving equitable pay for what I am able to accomplish for my client. Any thoughts? Bob Graham