Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsFortunately there has always been a strain
Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2016
There’s trouble afoot in the Land of the Free. Many, perhaps the majority of American workers, spend their days under the thumbs of detached autocrats, who at the top in large corporations make over 300 times what the average worker receives. Since the early 1970’s real wages have remained flat for workers while productivity has increased almost five-fold. What gives? The simple but compelling answer is that intimidation works. As union membership has declined, who will stand up for the workers? Certainly not its money-grubbing politicians. Essentially most workers are on their own. Thus, wages are slashed, benefits diminished, corporate employees replaced with ill-paid temporary workers, jobs are moved overseas, and safety is ignored whenever it doesn’t fit management’s cost-benefit profile. The simplest aspects of human dignity are attacked. No allowance is made for a sick child at home or for a vehicle that breaks down. Bathroom breaks are timed by computer, and on some production lines key workers must wear an adult diaper because management cannot be bothered to consider the biological needs of its employees.
Far too many American corporations are run in the interest of maximizing shareholder value. In this worldview, the value of labor counts only insofar as that labor can increase shareholder wealth. Money over people is the rule not the exception. In an earlier day such a set of values would have been considered a form of idolatry, and the people who advocated for money-worship over the protection and enhancement of human beings would have been pariahs. Now business cable networks celebrate them and ask in hushed, submissive tones what can be done to cut so-called entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare.
Fortunately there has always been a strain, often a small strain, of management thinking that considered this ruling paradigm a bunch of hooey. That strain flourished especially in small, privately owned companies where owners felt themselves to be part of the community and where workers were also neighbors and sometimes friends. Occasionally this strain flourished under the name of Servant Leadership and was understood to include broad non-denomination religious overtones, a part of what is referred to as civic religion.
In Western Europe worker rights flourished under the aegis of left-learning social democratic parties. At times overtly communist or socialist parties pushed the social democrats to promulgate labor laws that were strongly pro-worker. Among the pleasant revelations of Michael Moore’s film, “Where To Invade Next,” is a sojourn among Italian business owners and workers. In the two companies Moore visited, both high-end manufacturers, workers had six weeks of paid vacation, twelve paid holidays, and a bonus thirteenth-month of salary given at the end of the year. Even workers in less flush companies receive 20 paid vacation days and 12 paid holidays. In Italy workers must be strongly represented on management committees. The owners Moore interviewed, far from being upset by the power and benefits that their workers have, seemed proud to run companies that contributed to the common good. Profits were still made but not at the expense of exploiting those who produce the wealth. Italy has the tenth largest economy in the world.
Even in the United States until the 1970’s, management saw itself as part of the community and as contributing to community well-being. Likewise, a company’s people were considered its most important resource. This was not mere lip service. During World War II, many rich and powerful people volunteered for active military service. When the country was in danger, those in all social and economic classes assumed the risks of defending freedom. Somewhere along the line the ethic of defending freedom was transformed to defending freedom so long as doing so helped to maximize profits. Some might consider this a change in values worth exploring.
Into this morass of amoral contemporary American business thinking, we are fortunate to have Everybody Matters by Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia. While not nearly so polemical as I might wish, Everybody Matters turns the ruling corporate management paradigm on its head. Chapman is the CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, a $1.7 billion manufacturing corporation created by and large through the acquisition of small, specialized businesses mostly in the US but overseas as well. Sisota is a chaired business professor at Babson College. The initial insight for this novel, humane, and effective management philosophy came in 1997 as Chapman was introducing himself to some managers at a recent acquisition. To boost morale and alleviate fear, Chapman on the fly invented a game that allowed a play-element into business activities. While employees could earn a small amount of money from participating in the game, play was as important as economic reward. Chapman reflected on this unanticipated success and eventually, in dialogue with his managers and workers, created a set of Guiding Principles of Leadership (GPL) meant to help employees grow personally and not simply serve as functionaries in a for-profit enterprise. It wasn’t enough simply to create principles, however. Enron had done that. Those principles had to be lived from the top down. People on all levels and across the range of companies were asked how the GPL could be implemented more effectively. Along the way, Chapman and his senior managers discovered that success didn’t come from finding the right talent or from recruiting at the best business schools. Success came from positive leadership and specifically from creating passionate experienced people who were prepared to perform in a creative, life-enhancing way. A profitable, high-energy corporation didn’t need to fuel itself on stress and treat people as objects or functions. As Chapman avers (italics in the original), “Business can change the world if it fully embraces the responsibility for the lives entrusted to it” (page 74). Brutal honesty isn’t necessary. Brutal honesty is still brutal. Real leadership cares, inspires and celebrates.
The great recession of 2008-2009 gave depth to this vision. As with the overwhelming percentage of business enterprises, Barry-Wehmiller suffered a drastic downturn in orders and revenue. The conventional wisdom would require laying off employees, cutting benefits, and closing the least profitable divisions. That wasn’t the path that Chapman took. He did have to make painful choices. He ordered everyone in the corporation to take one month of unpaid leave. Besides that, though, the only salary he cut was his own, by more than 95 percent. Because everyone in the organization, including union stewards, saw this process as fair and well-intentioned, it was instituted without objection. No one had to be permanently laid off. Toward the end of the recession, business came roaring back, and when it did, Barry-Wehmiller had experienced, well-motivated employees in place to take the corporation quickly to new levels of profitability.
While the first half of this book is a kind of case study, the second half serves as a description of principles leading to a path forward. It includes group visioning, leading through stewardship, inspiring passion and optimism, and recognizing and celebrating everyone who is actively on the path the Guiding Principles sketch out. The authors recognize that “courageous patience” is sometimes required. Not everyone learns at the same pace or can embrace change easily. Toward the end of their book, Chapman and Sisodia quote Herb Kelleler, the long-time CEO of Southwestern Airlines. Kelleler said, “The business of business is people. Yesterday, today, and forever.”
Everybody Matters goes a long way toward showing how to realize Kelleler’s maxim. It is a powerful antidote to the management by numbers that serves as leadership and strategy in most corporations. While it presents a way that will require continuous improvement and listening carefully to people throughout the organization, a process that is never fully realized, it offers a life-enhancing paradigm and a way to add meaning and profit to the endeavor that occupies most people throughout most of their waking hours. Thank you, Chapman and Sisodia, for writing this book.
John Jiambalvo is the author of Smirk, A Novel, a satiric analogy to the first administration of George W. Bush, and Americana Collection: Poems of War and Peace.
