Convoluted story, but in essence, after reading the famous “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by management guru Dale Carnegie, at age 12, I have had sincere interest in how a leader, a manager, a “boss” creates a successful, productive environment, whether a for-profit business, or a non-profit entity?
It is clear since the last three or four decades of the 20th century, there are many, very insightful, articulate, and engaged women and men who are very well known, very busy, and very prominent giving lectures, speeches, authoring books, and articles to “sell” her/his services as someone who can help a CEO, a high ranking corporate executive, or even a section manager, improve management tactics, thereby creating a productive, profitable, collegial workplace environment.
Here I give my personal view, based on a real experience, on my belief, that the most essential way for a leader to move her/his coworkers, his/her company to success, are four words, if sincere—(no matter what, being sincere is key to all, but sincerity is assumed in my blog)— that develop the RESPECT and TRUST necessary for a high performing, unified, collection of human beings that can move a company, a group, to its goals, and thus success, by any measurement.
At age 25, in my first full time job, I heard these words, and have never forgotten the experiences I had in that job, which was a successful “operation” that succeeded for the boss, as measured by what he considered a success.
I share the experience briefly.
My interest in public policy, and the creation and implementation of policy dated back to, I recall, when I was around twelve years old.
Both in youth conferences, some national, when in high school, and involvement in an organization in college that interacted with guest speakers who were Senators, high officials in a President’s cabinet staff, and prominent journalists, my sight was set on working in the world of elections, and/or legislative/executive branch positions. From age 22 to 25 I had summer jobs, and then part-time jobs in campaigns, state of Texas legislature special committees, and consultant slots with both labor and agriculture non-profits. The summer between junior and senior year of college, I actually traveled to eight Native American “reservations” to review and comment on the impact of the War on Poverty on the economic well-being of the Native Americans living on the reservations.
Upon graduation from the University of Texas, law school, based in Austin, I immediately sought employment in Washington, DC. While could write many pages on “how” I obtained the top legislative assistance slot with the Congressman who represented Austin, Texas, and also rural counties stretching to the southeast of Austin to the Houston metro area, bottom line is August 1, 1972, I went to work for Congressman J.J. “Jake” Pickle, once represented by “Congressman Lyndon Johnson nearly 10 years from late 1930’s to late 1940’s.
While I had definite views of that good policy that tilted more to the “liberal” 60’s views of most young people, I also believed it was not my job to in any manner try to “influence” my boss, elected by the people of the 10th District of Texas, but to give Mr. Pickle all viewpoints—left, right, middle of the road, pro-Viet Nam war, anti-Viet Nam war—as he was to be accountable to the voters, and he had to make the decisions on how to vote based not only on representing the 10th District of Texas, but also what he believed was best for our nation.
Shortly after starting work for Congressman Pickle, the full House of the Congress had to vote whether to approve a proposal by the House Appropriations Committee to prohibit the Nixon Administration from spending any money to bomb North Viet Nam supply lines to the war zones in South Viet Nam that went through Cambodia—i.e. the Nixon Administration was bombing a nation that was not at “war” with the U.S., and opposition to the Viet Nam War had led to a very negative view of the bombing of Cambodia.
My job was to write up the proposal, including the “committee report”, stating what the majority of the committee recommended and summarizing why the minority of the committee opposed it before it came to a vote on the floor of the house.
The “stop the bombing” of Cambodia proposal came up rather quickly in terms of when it was scheduled after the House returned from the traditional August recess, and I scrambled to get my memo prepared. I handed the folder with the memo to the Congressman as he left his office to go the House chamber. The vote was to be in two to three hours.
About an hour and half later, I got a phone call from the Congressman, who asked me to come talk to him about my memo, and the issues involved. I met the Congressman at the door of what is named the “Rayburn Room”, sort of a nice room where members can meet with personal staff, as personal staff are not permitted on the House floor.
He had the memo in his hand. He asked a few questions. He knew his support of the Viet Nam War while President Johnson was at the White House was not going over well back in Austin, Texas, among its very large, very active University of Texas student, staff, and faculty factions. He asked questions about what I said in the memo.
Just as I assumed the meeting was over, Congressman Pickle looked at me and said four words: “What do you think?”
The four words set me back—just briefly—as I sensed he was sincere, though we had worked one on one for only a week. He wanted to know.
I answered— I recall, I generally said I did not think the bombing of supply lines in Cambodia was going to alter what our military was facing, without true support of the Vietnamese people, north or south. I probably said more than that, but it was nearly 50 years ago.
What I do recall: from that day forward, I knew Mr. Pickle respected me; trusted me to give my opinion, but not to be insisting he agree with me. (How he voted on this first of several restrictions on spending on the war in Viet Nam, I do not recall — I do recall that he did alter his position with this vote, and several similar votes over the next two years or so.).
More important to this blog—he sincerely sought the views, thoughts, and opinions—of all staff persons in the areas of his work—his investigations; whether to fund projects in his district, whether to opine on a matter not before Congress, and so on.
My near ten years working with a boss who wanted to know what I thought, and what others on the staff thought, made me forever believe, and observe, the “boss”, the “leader”, or whoever is in charge of making the final decision, created a workplace environment where people felt “wanted”, and responded no matter what the task and took their next step, with commitment because s/he was respected, trusted, because her/his openly conveying what s/he thought about a course of action, the final decision, meant “you are important; you are part of our team”. And if his/her opinion was not followed, the staffer person knew that next time maybe his/her thinking would be followed, because the “boss” respected what did s/he thought.
In 1994, I was on a C-Span program focused on “employee ownership” with moderator Paul Orgel, and other guests, Carlos Bonilla, Chief Economist, Employment Policies Institute, and Chris Mackin, President, Ownership Associates, Inc.
As the program concluded Mr. Orgel said that although most employee-owned companies were successful, and had a good workplace culture, there were examples of employee owed companies that were not successful, and had bad workplace culture. So, Mr. Orgel asked, “what are the key factors that create an empowered workforce, committed to the success of the company of which employees are owners?”
Mr. Bonilla responded first and gave a good answer. When it was my turn to speak there was only one minute left to the and I said, “Four words can make the difference—the four words: What do you think?”.*
Post Script: A recent article in the Washington Post, focused on how President Biden interacts with his key staff people, when dealing with tough issues that always come up for a President to address, a key staff person said to the Post reporter that President Biden will ask the staffer(s), one on one, “What do you think?”.
Needless to say, when I read that line in the Post, memories of one afternoon in August 1972 came to mind, and it always was a trait I looked for when I personally visited 596 employee-owned companies from March 1991 until March 2019.
In sum: learn from the management gurus in the third decade of 21st century. They deserve respect. Also, when making decisions as a leader, always ask your coworkers, “What do you think?”