Good executives touch the lives of their workers

STLtoday.com ^ | 8-18-03 | Dale Dauten (Corporate Curmudgeon)

[FairWitness]

What is success? How about Bill Clinton - is he successful?

Those are questions that Bob Chapman, Chief executive of Barry-Wehmiller Cos., the St. Louis-based maker of packaging equipment, has been asking. He's found that the typical reaction when asked about Clinton and success is laughter.

[FairWitness]

- - - I got a mental picture of employees wandering about the downtowns and office parks of America, unmotivated and listless, avoiding work. Instead of the Undead, they are the Unled.

I am 100% on-board with the fact that a business must make a reasonable profit to survive (and continue to employee people), but the employees need to feel that at least their boss (if not higher-ups) understand and appreciate what they are doing.

[FairWitness]

During my 27 years as a research scientist (pharmaceutical R&D, now retired) I had 4 different bosses. I can't really complain that they (my bosses) did not show interest in what I and my group were doing, though it was almost exclusively in weekly meetings in their office where that occurred. It would have been nice if they had occasionally come around to the laboratory so that my lab assistants could see that someone besides me knew what they were doing and appreciated it. Likewise, it would have been nice if my bosses boss would have done the same. The only time that my bosses boss (VP of R&D) ever appeared in the labs was for safety inspections! That's better than nothing, but it's seemed like he (a Ph.D. chemist) was more interested in "no lost-time accident stats" and insurance costs than in the science and the scientists. No one needs to feel sorry for me; I was well paid and self-motivated, but it would still be nice to feel like the VP's cared as much about the science as they did about the finances.