A better epitaph

by GEORGE GATES

GEORGE GATES is president and CEO of Core-R.O.I. and is based in Greensboro, N.C.

I've never met anyone, in the past twenty-five years of working with companies and unions, who intentionally wanted to do a lousy job. Oh, I've met some people who were lazy, several who couldn't do things correctly, lots who were stuck in their ways, and a few with a couple of bulbs missing from their marquees. But never anyone who just plain set out to do a lousy job.

"Is your middle name 'Pollyanna'?" a friend asked me recently when I told him that. "You obviously haven't been where I work lately," he added.

Our friendly but heated conversation continued. He bombarded me with labor-management ills that, in his view, were simply "the way things are." His barrage included:

• Managers who continue to assume the worst from their employees, and act surprised when they get it.
• Union leaders with one eye on the rearview mirror and one foot on the brake.
• Employees who guard information and sit on ideas to protect their current jobs.
• Management leaders who stall investment in technology because "the union will resist the extra training required."
• Union leaders who point to a lack of investment as proof that "management doesn't care."
• Employees who think that improving things is everybody's business but theirs.

"If that's not wanting to do a lousy job," he nearly yelled, "then I don't know what is!"

I'd like to say I was rational in response; but I know I spluttered a few "Yea buts"—until it occurred to me to ask this question: "When these people die, what do you think they'd want to put on their tombstones?" It stopped him long enough to ask me what I meant.

THE END RESULT. When we've finished the endless arguments and accusations we hurl at each other (and hide behind) in the workplace, what is the epitaph we would write for ourselves? I'm convinced that no one would willingly inscribe: "He was here also," or "She hung around awhile, too."

I refuse to believe that people set out to do a lousy job, aiming, in the end, at mediocrity. I've worked with too many people through the years who are energetic and committed about improving their workplaces.

They have not all been powerful leaders or bosses. Far from it. They've been the quiet and simple, the loud and the strong. They've been secretaries and supervisors, machine tenders and process engineers, programmers and cleaners. All have wanted the same thing: to be part of something bigger and better than themselves, to contribute to something greater by doing more than simply showing up and being counted.

"Pretty tall order, Polly," you might think, "especially where I work." But it's not, really. It starts with two simple steps.

CHANGE THE CONVERSATION/CHANGE THE CULTURE. The first step is to hold a new conversation for a change. A few years ago, Peter Block wrote that an organization's culture is defined by the way we talk, the language we use, the nature of the dialogue we engage in. "The way to change the culture," he said, "is to change the conversation."

This means calling a halt to the meaningless, yet familiar, "Unions-won't-management-wants-employees-can't" conversation that makes our eyes glaze over. It requires the courage to provoke a new conversation, to call "Time out!" on the old bromides which, according to Block, "keep us frozen in comfortable routine."

Holding a new conversation doesn't depend solely on leaders. It can happen at the water fountain or in the parking lot. It requires only the willingness to begin a dialogue without all our slippery-smooth stereotypes and comfortable assumptions. Yes, there might be a little tension at first when we try it; but in the tension there is also energy and the potential for surprise and opportunity.

GRAB AN IDEA AND TRY IT. The second step is easier: just begin. From the "new conversation" will come the inkling of possibilities. When you start to hear, "We could—" or "What if—" or "We might—" or "Let's consider—" grab one and try it. From this will come the practical plans and actions that lead to small success. And that is the start of a difference worth investing in.

A new conversation and a small beginning, I'll admit, are not very dramatic or complicated. They are the simple, but not easy, start of building something better where we spend a third or more of our lives. The willingness of people to do so may surprise you. Not me. I'm convinced people are looking for the chance to write a better epitaph.