Are You A Fayed?
Dateline: 09/16/97Mohammed Al Fayed is a rich and powerful man. He has worked hard and amassed a great fortune. That fortune includes Harrods department store in London and the Ritz Hotel in Paris. He is a formidable opponent, by all accounts. He is greatly respected. You can learn a lot about successfully managing a business from a man like Mohammed Al Fayed.
You can also learn at least one very valuable lesson about what not to do!
Drunken Driver?
Fayed lost his son Dodi in an accident caused, at least in part,
by a drunken driver. However, if he was a better manager, or
at least different style of manager, might the tragedy have been
prevented?
Security chief Henri Paul apparently was drunk when he was asked to drive Dodi and Diana away from the hotel. When asked why someone that drunk was allowed to chauffeur, one unnamed source at the Ritz Hotel in Paris replied "Nobody says no to the Fayeds."
I don't know if that is true. I have never met any of the Fayed family, but my heart goes out to them in their time of grief and mourning. They seem like nice people. The British press have run numerous stories about Mr. Fayed sending tea and snacks from Harrods to the mourners waiting on line at Princess Diana's castle.
Or A Syncopant?
I don't know if Henri Paul's ability to drive was impaired. And
I don't know what other factors were involved in the crash. I
do know that it is bad management practice to create a business
climate in which employees are afraid to speak up.
Don't tell me that this was a unique occurrence. Don't expect me to believe that our business mistakes would never cost lives. Fortunately, most of our errors aren't fatal, but they sure can be. If your employees are afraid to tell you that something is wrong it could cost you more than money.
Silence Hurts Safety
Safety issues at a refinery in Bayport, Texas are covered up because
production quotas have to be met. An explosion occurs and three
people are killed. The cost of repairing the explosion damage
far exceeds the profit made by the extra throughput achieved by
cutting corners. Three people are dead and the lives of their
family and friends are irreparably altered.
A worker has been moody and sullen lately. His co-workers start avoiding him. His supervisor has never had any formal training in managing people so he is not prepared to deal with the individual. At most, the worker is warned about his declining productivity. Two days later the employee calls in sick again, but shows up just before lunch with a rifle. The supervisor is killed and two others are wounded.
"Well yeah," you say. "Those things happen and they are unfortunate, but we don't have that kind of problem here. We have a perfect safety record in the plant and we have banned all weapons from company property."
I think you are naive, and I discuss that in a future article, but I will suggest a less dramatic example of how not listening to your employees can cost lives.
Less-Obvious Costs
A small, but successful design engineering firm has been losing
market share. They have tried everything (except listening to
their employees), but their competitors keep beating them out
for the big jobs. As a result they have to cut back. They lay
off one engineer and three designers.
Six months later the stress of being out of work at his age, and not being able to properly support his family, has worn down one of the designers. He has no more health insurance so he keeps putting off seeing the doctor. One day he has a heart attack and dies.
Another of the laid-off employees has become increasingly despondent. When he hears the news about his friend's heart attack he finally cracks. He runs a hose from the exhaust into his car and waits.
It is Your Responsibility
Granted, these are severe examples, but things like this can and
do happen. Sometime they are beyond our control. Sometimes they
could have been prevented if we had taken the time to listen,
to watch for signs, to treat our employees as individuals.
And Your Chance to Win
Build the kind of organizational climate where people are encouraged
to speak up. Not only will you have a chance to avoid tragedies
like the examples above, but you may learn something. And that
something you learn will help you make your company more successful,
regardless of how you measure success.
John --
If you have any questions or comments about this article, or if there is an issue you would like us to address, please let me know.
