Stepping Forward Together: Creating Trust and Commitment in the Workplace. Mac Ph.D. McIntire
for improvement. Identify what you can do differently to strengthen your interpersonal relationships. Also, note how you might be able to help others to better interact with you.
I promise that, as you climb the Ladder of Commitment in your professional and personal relationships, you will find yourself stepping forward together with the people who matter most in your life. More important, you will become more successful in all that you do.
1
A Common Complaint
It had been a great day – a wonderful ending to a great week. Like most of my business trips, this one, too, had ended on a successful note. I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than a few hours of solitude and sleep on my night flight home.
The man sitting next to me, however, had other plans. He was full of questions: where was I from, where was I going, what did I do for a living . . . .
“I’m a consultant,” I answered, unenthusiastically.
It was my typical, brief answer. I thought that would end his questions; as it usually does. I didn’t want to be rude, but I’d facilitated a grueling strategic planning session with a team of executives at a large, respected company, and I was physically drained. Normally, on the flight home from a week-long meeting I’m too tired to even read. After days of exhausting, organizational analysis, I don’t feel like talking to anyone. The five-hour flight from Philadelphia to Las Vegas was going to be debilitating enough; the last thing I wanted to do was talk to a stranger.
I could tell my fellow passenger was a businessman – probably an executive, a decision maker, a potential client. He appeared to be in his early forties. His thick crop of dark, slicked-back hair had slight tinges of gray, unlike my balding head and silver temples. Like me, he wore a dress shirt, tie, slacks and well-shined shoes. He, too, had loosened his tie but not taken it off. I’d watched earlier as he had neatly folded his sport coat and placed it in the overhead bin next to his briefcase and carry-on bag. Any good salesperson would consider this a golden opportunity to sell the services of his consulting firm and possibly generate a new client. But I’m not a good salesman. Never have been.
“What kind of a consultant are you?” he continued.
“A management consultant,” I responded, hoping the briefness of my answers would signal my desire to avoid conservation.
“What kind of management consulting do you do?” he persisted.
Since the short answers weren’t working, I thought I might be able to silence him with the long version:
“I help companies define their strategic focus and align everything within their company to achieve long-term profitability and growth,” I declared. “I show businesses how to stay focused on the things that matter most. I provide systematic tools and processes that enhance employee performance. I create teams out of groups of individuals. I build mutual trust and respect between managers and employees and create supportive relationships at every level of an organization. I build high performance companies staffed with committed and enthusiastic workers all going in the same direction at the same time. I teach managers how to get their employees to do the right things for the right reasons at the right time, each and every day at work.”
“Wow! How do you do that?” he eagerly asked, sitting up in his chair and leaning closer toward me.
I could tell by the tone of his voice and the attentive look on his face that my plan had backfired. His question was sincere; he wanted the real answer. He was almost pleading with me to continue. The intensity of his attentiveness jolted me awake. Nothing energizes me more than someone who is truly interested in learning the deep truths of organizational and personal effectiveness. I thoroughly enjoy discussing what makes human beings and businesses tick and will gladly forego sleep to help a troubled company, a struggling manager, an unchallenged employee, or despondent soul.
My need for sleep and to be left alone vanished. I was suddenly alert and revived as I switched to my training and consulting mode and introduced myself as we shook hands. My seatmate was Paul Spencer, the general manager of a tool manufacturing company in North Las Vegas that employs about 200, mostly blue-collar workers. Paul had been the plant manager for almost two years, having started his career with the same company as an engineer in the design department at the corporate headquarters in Ohio. He spent several years in sales and marketing and was eventually promoted to head of the Midwest region. He was awarded his current general manager position as a result of his thorough understanding of the business. Like me, he was returning home after a week-long business trip.
“Is that true what you said about getting people to work together, all going in the same direction toward the same goal?” Paul asked. “Can you really get employees to be enthusiastic and committed?” He shook his head as if he didn’t believe it.
“Of course,” I responded. “Why are you wondering?”
“I’m not so sure it’s possible,” he countered. “I’m having a heck of a time getting people at my plant to be enthusiastic about our goals, and I don’t know why. I’m constantly reading articles and management books that talk about building trust between managers and employees, but I can’t seem to pull it off with the type of people I’ve got working in my plant. When I was the sales manager it was easy to motivate salespeople. But I really struggle with the line staff on my shop floor.
“And, to tell you the truth,” he continued, “my managers aren’t much better. They aren’t team players either. Communication is horrible, and cross-functional cooperation seems like a foreign concept. It’s hard to fathom how, in such a small company, people can become so territorial. It’s like there are huge walls separating the departments. I’m about ‘this close’ to calling it quits and going back into sales,” he said, holding up his thumb and index finger about a quarter inch apart.
“So, is there any hope for me?” he asked, shaking his head as if he thought there wasn’t. “Can you really get people to work as a team, even in my type of business?”
“It sounds to me like you face the same challenges many managers face, regardless of the type of business in which they operate,” I suggested. “Your situation is not unique. You hire what you hope are the best people, only to discover they don’t always work well together. You put together what you think is a winning combination of individuals, and then find out they don’t necessarily gel as a team. Casey Stengel said it this way: ‘It’s easy to get good players. Gettin’ ’em to play together, that’s the hard part.’”
“He’s right!”
“No,” I countered, shaking my head. “He’s not right. I think Casey Stengel was wrong.”
“Yeah, you’re right. It’s not just getting them to play together that’s hard: it’s also hard to get good players,” Paul sighed, disheartened.
“That’s not what I meant. I firmly believe that it’s hard to get people to play together, or even to get good players, only if you don’t know how.”
Paul looked at me as if I had just made a ridiculously obvious statement. So I reiterated. “Getting good people and managing them well isn’t hard if you know how to do it. I firmly believe that succeeding in business or in your job – even succeeding in life – is easy if you know how. The key is knowing what it takes to be successful, and then doing it until you succeed.
I continued, “You and I have something in common, Paul. Both of us design, build, and sell tools. Your company’s tools allow people to build things better, faster, and easier. I create tools that help people and organizations do the same thing. My tools make people more effective at work, both in their individual and collaborative team roles. My tools help companies, and the people within them, move in the right direction and do the right things at the right time for the right reasons. And you, of all people, should know that having the right tools makes all the difference in the world.”
Paul nodded as he listened. He turned and faced me in his seat so he could hear better above the cabin noise.