Once upon a time, there was a man named, Joe. Joe owned a very successful business. He had hundreds of employees who worked for him, including some very good managers. Joe really loved his workers, and paid them well for their work. He believed that his employees ought to have the best equipment to do their jobs, so he invested in that equipment on a regular basis. Joe also was convinced that his employees should have quality health care, so he made sure that all of their pay packages contained good quality insurance plans, and he provided these plans to his employees at almost no cost to them. Joe also created some other generous benefits for his workers. The result was, everyone in town wanted to work for Joe's corporation because it was the best.

Generally speaking, Joe was quite appreciated and loved by his employees. In fact, everyone who worked for Joe recognized that he was a good man. He was fair and a good leader. He also worked harder than anyone else, spending most days in a week and a number of late nights in the office. Joe rarely took time off for any personal reasons. He was a good family man, but as his business grew and became more and more successful, he knew that his long hours at work were taking a toll on his family. All of Joe's employees recognized Joe's dedication, and his strong work ethic, and they spoke highly of him and of his personal example.

The reason for his employee's general affection and for their good will was not because Joe was a particularly easy man to satisfy or to work for. In fact, he could be a pretty darn tough and demanding boss. Joe sought excellence from everyone, and he wasn't afraid to ask his employees to provide excellence in their work too. Interestingly enough, even though Joe could be quite strict and demanding, he was viewed by most of his employees as a man who was always fair. Joe could often be seen during the course of the work day consulting his workers for their imput. He would sometimes spend the entire day with his employees, meeting each one at their designated office or work station. Joe wasn't afraid to ask his employees how to improve things in the company. He would say, "How are you doing? What do you think we need to do to improve our production and reduce our costs? And how can your work activities be modified to become more efficient and to make your job more critical to our company's success?"

One day, Joe's wife came to him and said, "Honey, we haven't taken a really nice vacation in twenty years. Our children are all about to graduate from high school and go to college, and when they leave home, we'll probably never see them again - or at least as much as we have over the last twelve years. Let's take off the entire summer and go with the children on a long cruise around the world."

Joe thought for a moment, and looked over at his wife. He could see that she looked older and anxious. Her visage contained the beginnings of the same lines and signs of age that he also had on his own face. He also knew that his wife had sacrificed a great deal for the company's success. In fact, they had both sacrificed long hours every day for twenty years to achieve the success that they enjoyed. So Joe agreed to the plan. Joe's wife was elated. So were his children. All three of his children were thrilled that they were finally going to have the opportunity to spend some quality time with their father. While they were on the cruise, Joe Jr. wanted to talk to his Dad about the possibility of going to college and then coming back home to work in the family business. Wendy, Joe's middle child,  was interested in a career as a nurse. She wanted to spend some time with her father, discussing potential nursing schools for her training. Lana, Joe's youngest daughter, was excited about the trip because one of her personal dreams was to travel the world.  For Lana, this trip was her dream come true.

But in order for Joe to make this proposed trip with his family, he had to take time off from his CEO job. This presented Joe with a major problem. Who was going to take his place? He knew that he had to find someone to take over his duties, and it had to be someone who would manage his company so well that nothing would suffer for his absence. The world cruise with his family was supposed to begin in middle of May. This was when Joe Jr. was scheduled to graduate from high school. Then the cruise would continue through the summer until the middle of September. So Joe needed to find someone to watch over his business for almost five months. Joe sought out several of his friends, and even a few of his friendly competitors. He wanted their advice. He also spoke to his business attorney and even called the head of his company's accounting firm. The head of the accounting firm was a personal friend whom Joe really liked and trusted. Everyone gave Joe the same advice. "Find someone," they said, "inside your company - someone that you can trust, and give him or her the power to make the important decisions. Then find another employee, someone you believe will always tell you the truth, and ask him or her to monitor what your stand in is doing. Make sure that this person doing the monitoring calls you, if a problem develops."

This plan sounded good to Joe. He had many employees whom he thought could handle the responsibility. He also had a number of people in his company who he could trust to call him, if anything went wrong. So, Joe proceded with the plan. After a number of consultations with his employees and after establishing a policy of open nominations, three strong candidates emerged. The first candidate was Len. Len was a forty five year old systems analyst. He worked in Joe's Tech department. Len was smart, popular with the rest of the employees in the company, and highly rated in his yearly company evaluations. The second candidate was Sarah. Sarah was a senior account executive in Joe's sales and marketing department. Sarah was a long time employee with a continuing record of distinction and success. Sarah was one of best communicators around, and she was a real hard worker. The final candidate was George. George was someone who had been with Joe since the business began some twenty five years before. George was a trusted and capable manager. He often had good suggestions, and particularly was good at offering advice on how to expand and grow the business. George was also someone that a good number of employees in the company came to for advice. He was well respected and many employees came to him for either personal help or for access to Joe. If George said that they needed to meet with Joe, they did, and often those meetings ended with a number of business problems resolved and everyone happy.

Joe thought about what to do for several days. Finally, he decided that he would ask all three of these fine individuals to take over the management of his company. Here is how Joe decided to structure his temporary managers. Because of his senority and length of service, Joe decided that George would hold the day to day responsibility of overseeing the entire company. Len would oversee the internal business structure and the day to day problems with the company's employees. He would also report to George. Sarah would take over all marketing and sales activities, promote the company's business in the general market place and report to George as well. Joe also established clearly a policy that both Len or Sarah would have the right to call him at any time while he was away. Both Sarah and Len were authorized to call in order to discuss George's decisions or to ask Joe to resolve any conflicts between the three of them. George said that he was perfectly satisfied with this arrangement. Len and Sarah also said that they were happy with the responsibility structure. George, Len and Sarah were all given significant raises in pay to compensate them for their new and additional duties.

In March, Joe made the necessary announcements throughout the company and all three hundred of Joe's employees were told how the company was to operate while he and his family were away on their world cruise. The feedback from the company's employees was very positive. George was popular with most, and Len and Sarah were highly respected for their skills. On a beautiful Friday in early May, Joe was given a very nice going away party by his entire company. All three hundred employees and some of their family members came to the party to say goodbye to Joe and to his family. Several employees gave Joe and his wife presents, and many told him and his wife that they felt that Joe deserved this trip and the time with his family. They also said that they hoped that Joe would rest and relax.

While Joe was away on his world cruise, George called him once each month to report on the status of the company. The reports were excellent. Cash on hand was rising. Sales were up, and costs were under control. Each time that Joe received a call from George, he came away from the report with a positive feeling. Everything seemed to be going well, and Joe was really enjoying the time with his wife and children. He was very happy. The only unusual thing that Joe noticed was that Len and Sarah never called him. He wasn't too concerned about this lack of communication from his monitors because the reports from George were so good. There was no reason for them to call.  Everything seemed to be going along fine.  

When the cruise ended in September, Joe returned home. On his first day back at work, as Joe toured the company for his first inspection, he noticed that a number of his long time employees were absent from their offices or from their work stations. This was odd. Many of these workers were employees with excellent work habits. It wasn't like them to be absent. So Joe called George into his office and asked what was going on.

"Oh, I fired those employees," declared George. "Their jobs have been consolidated into the job descriptions of twenty five other employees. By letting them go, I saved the company almost five hundred thousand dollars in costs. And you know what, the remaining employees are getting the job done just fine. I guess you can expect a huge profit surge at the end of the year. Cause we are making more money with a significantly less number of employees. I know that you will be happy about that."

"What?" cried Joe. "How could you fire those people? They are all great workers."

George looked surprised. Then he gathered himself and said, " Look Joe, you are just an old softy. I told Len to expand our technology capability throughout the company, to make up for the loss of productivity and he did it. We are set now to make more money than ever, and the dead wood is cleaned out. You ought to be thanking me for doing it. It needed to be done."

Joe listened, shook his head, and then asked for a list of the fired employees. George went to his office and returned with the list. There were twenty seven names on it. After George left Joe's office, Joe picked up his telephone and started calling. He called all twenty seven individuals and talked to them extensively. It took him all day to make these calls, but he called everyone of them and listened to them pour out their anger and their personal pain. Almost half of the fired employees were still unemployed. Some were looking hard for work, while others had found jobs. These jobs, however, were in local businesses but at lower pay and with less or no benefits. Two of his former employees were trying to start their own businesses. Both told Joe that they had no idea how difficult it was to start a business and were ready to give up. Three other former employees were already in financial trouble with their homes in foreclosure.  Most were behind in their bills or in some kind of financial trouble. Joe was angry. All of the fired employees asked him why he permitted George to fire them. All of the fired individuals complained that they had given Joe's company their best, but for all of their good work habits and years of hard work, they had been turned out with nothing to show for it.

When Joe had finished his calls, he asked his secretary to go get Sarah and Len. In fifteen minutes, both were standing before him. Sarah looked especially nervous.

"Why didn't you call me, especially when you heard that George was going to fire twenty seven people?" asked Joe.

Sarah cleared her voice and replied, " Look, Sir. It all happened before I knew about it. One day they were here and the next they were gone."

"Well,  the day that they were gone, you should have called me!" declared Joe.

"Yes, Sir, I guess I should have, but George said that if I did call you, I should consider what it would mean for you."

"What do you mean?" asked Joe with irritation in his voice.

"George said that if I called you, I had to take responsibility for ruining your vacation with your family. He said that you would be upset and probably leave wherever you were and return home.  I guess I just couldn't do that to you and to your wife."

"Well, I understand," said Joe, "but you should have called anyway."

"Well, Sir," replied Sarah,  "I have to admit that I also knew that I would have to battle with George and Len until you returned. I guess I was a bit intimidated."

Joe looked at Len.

"So, Len, you must have agreed with George's action."

Yes, Sir, I did." replied Len matter of factly. "It was the most efficient thing to do."

"Efficient yes," cried Joe, "but you have done something very wrong."

"What's that?" asked Len.

"You and George have damaged people's lives by trying to save the company some money. That is wrong. But even more wrong is the fact that you have damaged my reputation. Before I left for my trip, my employees trusted me and believed that I cared about them. Now, they think that they are all expendable for the sake of profit. Things may look great to you right now, but in the future we are going to have all kinds of problems because of this decision." 

Len lowered his head. He knew what was coming next. He was going to be fired.

Joe looked at Len for a long while. Then he asked, "So, Len, do you have anything else you want to say to me?"

"Uh, well, I guess I am fired, right?" 

"No," declared Joe. "I am not going to fire you. This was your chance to become a manager, and you made some mistakes. That is part of learning how to manage. No, I am looking for something else from you."

"Uh, what's that, Sir?" 

"I am looking for an apology from you for your mistakes." 

"Oh, well, Sir, I am very sorry that I supported George, and I am very sorry that I have caused damage to your reputation."

"Fine," said Joe. "Both of you can go. When you see my secretary, tell her to send in George."

Len nodded, and Sarah smiled weakly. Then both managers left Joe's office.

In a moment or two, George appeared at Joe's office door.

"So, I guess my twenty five years of  good work is done here. I am fired, right?"  asked George almost sarcastically.

"No, your work in this company of mine is just beginning, George," declared Joe. "I want you to go call every one of those employees you fired and ask them all to come back to work here. I also want you to offer those who say they aren't coming back a nice severance package. Those who choose to come back to work here, are going to report directly to you. You are going to redesign their job descriptions so that every single one of them are doing work the company needs, and you are going to make sure that they become productive happy employees again. When you have completed that task, you are going to go to work for Sarah. You are going to be her personal assistant for as long as it takes, and your main job will be to teach her how  to manage this company without being afraid of conflict. When you have taught her everything you know and Sarah is ready and leading by example, you will get your old job back. As far as I am concerned, you damaged my reputation by making the decisions you made, and you did it all without consulting me. While I understand the economic reasons for your decisions, I want to remind you that our employees are people, and they deserve our respect. You have caused them to lose respect for me and for my company, and that hurts me far more than you seem to understand. One day, Sarah is going to be the CEO of this company. So you need to teach her all you know. In the meanwhile, get on the phone and start calling those people you fired. You have a lot of making up to do."

John K. Brackett, Ph.D.

All Rights Reserved

Contact John Brackett at Xomba or email him at: JKB3000@live.com

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