Stepping Forward Together: Creating Trust and Commitment in the Workplace. Mac Ph.D. McIntire
and in others. Armed with that information, they can rouse the enthusiasm and commitment of their employees and get them to perform as expected.”
I hoped I wasn’t going too deep too quickly. I normally don’t start my conversations with such philosophical pronouncements, but he seemed to be following my points.
“Before you can get someone to change or improve their performance, you first have to get them to acknowledge there is a need to change,” I suggested. “Would you agree that people can’t or won’t change their behavior until they are aware there is a need to change?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Likewise, people cannot alter or improve an unconscious process – like how they manage – until they become conscious about that process. The key to self-improvement is becoming aware of what one does, how one does it, and why one does it. If people are unaware of what, how and why they do something, not only can they not learn from ‘it’ and improve ‘it’, but they also cannot transfer their knowledge, behaviors or actions to others so they, too, can benefit from ‘it’.
“The ultimate goal in any organization is for everyone in the company to get ‘it’ – to understand what it takes to succeed at both the company and individual level. And that’s what I do as a consultant: I build tools and models to help people get ‘it’ and anchor ‘it’ in themselves and others so they can succeed at work and in life.”
I could tell Paul was tracking what I was saying. It was time for me to move from the philosophical to the practical.
“Now let me explain what ‘it’ is. Tell me, Paul, are there things at work that you get, but your employees don’t seem to get at all? Are there things that are obviously important to you as the plant general manager, but they don’t even show up on the radar screens of your employees? For example, are there things you notice all the time – such as a mess on the shop floor or a safety problem at your plant – that are blatantly apparent to you, but are oblivious to your employees?”
“Yes!” Paul reacted, surprising himself with how strongly his answer came out. “That really irritates me. It seems like I’m the only one who sees that stuff. Just last week I walked the assembly line and was disgusted at how filthy and cluttered some of the work stations were.”
“There’s a reason you seem to be the only one who sees it, Paul,” I said, thrilled to have been handed such a perfect example. “You’re conscious about cleanliness and safety. Your employees aren’t.”
“Why aren’t they?” he demanded. “I harp about those things all the time!”
“Yes, I’m sure you do,” I said with an amused smile. “And I’ll bet there are other things that you, as a manager, are conscious about that your employees may not seem to care about at all – things like operating costs, waste, yield rates, productivity, quality control, customer satisfaction, and other critical elements of your business. No doubt you’ve harped about those things, too. I’m quite sure you’ve tried to get everyone in your organization to be just as conscious about those issues as you are. After all,” I chided, “they are the things that matter most, aren’t they?”
Paul wasn’t smiling. He actually was gritting his teeth: his frustration about these issues was written all over his face.
“Why don’t your employees get ‘it’?” I queried.
“I don’t know!” he said irritably. “I’ve talked about those things until I’m blue in the face. Sometimes it’s as if I’m talking to a blank wall. I think I’m the only one who cares about those things.”
“Oh, I think other people care about them, too,” I explained. “You’re just at a higher level of consciousness than they are because you’re the general manager of the company. These things are constantly in your consciousness because of your position. They’re important to you.”
“But those things are important to everybody’s position!” Paul lamented. “Or at least they ought to be!”
“Yes. You’re absolutely right. They ought to be,” I agreed. “Cost containment, yield management, increased productivity, quality control, and better customer service ought to be at the forefront of the minds of every employee in every organization. Unfortunately, too often they are not. But, I can tell you how to get it into your employees’ minds so these things are just as important to them. And that’s through a concept I call conscious management.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“Conscious management is a process that ensures every employee is constantly focused on the things that matter most,” I explained. “It is how you get every single manager and employee to be alert, attentive, and adamantly focused on doing the right things right for the right reasons. It’s how you get everyone in an organization moving in the same direction at the same time.
“You see, Paul, the reason why you are conscious about specific things at your plant is because of what you know, what you think, what you see, what you hear, what you feel, and what you intuitively sense. You know what the company’s goals are and why they are important. You think about what is best for the business. You see inefficiencies on the production line and want to fix them. You hear customers complain and you take quality failures personally because of your concern about the business. You feel bad when the company is not as profitable as it could be. When you sense something is wrong, you dive right in and try to figure out what is going on.”
“That’s right, I do,” he confirmed.
“So now, try to imagine what would happen if all of your employees responded the way you do to the situations in your company. Imagine how productive your plant would be if every manager and employee knew what you knew, thought what you thought, saw what you saw, heard what you heard, felt what you felt, and sensed what you intuitively sensed. Because that’s the real issue, isn’t it? If you could be assured that every single employee on the line and every manager in every department at your company were as conscious – or conscientious – about the same things you are, your life as the general manager would be a whole lot easier.”
“You’re right,” Paul said, obviously pondering my premise. “That’s an interesting thought!”
“That’s what conscious management is,” I declared. “Conscious management is a systematic process whereby you consciously transfer what you know, think, see, hear, feel and intuit into your employees and managers so they can know, think, see, hear, feel and intuit everything the same way you do. The only way your employees can do what you would do, the way you would do it, is if they process things the same way you do.”
“That’s a fascinating notion,” Paul exclaimed.
“And that leads us to another critical management concept I’m constantly promoting in my seminars. I call it: ‘managerless management.’”
“This one sounds even better than conscious management.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’ll like this one too. The question I ask managers is this: Who do you really want to manage your employees?” I asked, expecting Paul to answer.
Paul was stumped for a moment. He then rightly declared he wanted his employees to manage themselves.
“You’re absolutely right, Paul. The best form of management is where employees manage themselves.”
“That would be nice,” Paul said facetiously. “But that will never happen.”
“It has to happen!” I declared.
“Why’s that?”
“It HAS to happen,” I said, emphasizing my words even more strongly, “because the only way you can truly be a successful manager today is if you can raise the commitment level of your employees to a point where they manage themselves.
“Most managers today don’t have time to manage. Unlike fifteen or twenty years ago when a manager spent a great deal