[Rhodes22-list] UAW Thread visited and rehashed... for Ben C., Robert S., Jay B., et al.

Tootle ekroposki at charter.net
Fri Dec 19 09:26:24 EST 2008


Ben C., but you are such an easy target… If you remember that lawyers are the
only people who can sit on their hands and scratch their own back.  

Jay B. asked why other businesses cannot or do not follow Southwest Airlines
business model?

Robert S. said, I have generally lost confidence in the leadership of large
organizations.  Your indictment of the short-sighted gun-slinger mentality
is completely justified.  Few of the gang of you-scratch-my-back-
I'll-scratch-yours CEOs seem to be able to put together a plan for anything
beyond their own exit strategy.

How did suspect style managements come to be?  There are several books out
there that analyzed this.  The little booklet that I mentioned by J.F.C.
Fuller, saw this same issue prior to WWII in the military.  Some have
studied corporate governance especially targeting the board of directors of
corporations.  A book that addresses this issue is “Power and
Accountability” by Robert A. G. Monks (1991).

I have been part of several big corporations in what is termed middle
management.  People who ask real, moral or serious technical questions are
persona non grata.  

If you keep you mouth shut, you have to make real moral decisions if you see
wrong and want to stay. I often quote Bryan Crenshaw for saying, “Making
right choices in gray areas is difficult.  To be aware of the dilemma is not
enough. There needs to be a moral sensitivity which remembers to ask the
right questions at the right time.  To know what is good is not enough? 
There is a difference between waking up and getting up. There must be
specific decision for the right.  To be sensitive and aware is good.  To
make proper decisions is better.  The way of victory is to maintain a moral
stamina which continues

I will say this, while upper management publically and in print claims to
want honesty and integrity, those selected for promotion often are neither. 
Eventually the pool for the highest management positions is full of slick
talkers who gloss over integrity and fair dealings.  This is a group that
while some have ability often are arrogant with others and simply do not
believe in what we call honesty.  

This does not mean all who attain the highest positions are that way.  There
are some whose ability and use of leadership are so obvious that they cannot
be held from the top positions. An illustration of this is Jon Huntsman who
wrote a small book about his beliefs, “Winners Never Cheat: Everyday Values
We Learned as Children But May Have Forgotten” 

Unfortunately, they apparently are not the majority.  And often they are
surrounded by the others.  The same is true in politics.  This issue is
spoken to by U. S. Senator Jim DeMint who wrote about it in, “Why We
Whisper”.

So how many of the aforementioned books have you read?  How many have you
paid for and given to others to read?  And wonder of wonders, you do not
even need a high school diploma to read.  It seems as we get older we read
less.  Because we are not required to read as class assignments, we are
required to read as responsible citizens.

Ed K









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