The article "You're the Expert, You Fire Him!" is about change management, it has been created by Wayne Messick.
Steve and Ellen had three children: a daughter in New York, another daughter in California, and a son who had stayed around to work in the family company.The cuople ran a manufacturing company in Indiana started by the husband's father.Although he was in his nineties, the grandfather still came to the office every day (during the parts of the year when he wasn't in Florida).Like so many family businesses, there were three generations involved simultaneously. The issue? The successor: Steve and Ellenīs son, Stevie.His attitude, at that moment that his sisters had moved away, and since he had stayed in their home town and worked for the company, that it was natrual that he take over the business, and it did not matter to him if he worked hard or not, cause someday, it was all going to be his, anyhow. It was his birthright.As you will see, however, the human being involved in that story seem to guses that the purpose was patently obvious. It doesn't need to be discsused.
As a result, members of three generations of the family have quite different individual interpretations of what that purpose obviously is.On my first visit to the business I found out exactly what that meant.The nature of their industry created several times each year when the plnat ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for a month to six weeks at a time, to meet the demands they faced in a really competitive industry.I happened to be there during one of those times. The son was supposed to be in charge of the factory floor and of one of the work shifts. Right in the middle of that busy time came a definnig conflict for him, and for the business.You see, Stevie was a baseball player. And his team, sponsored by the loacl bowling alley, was in the championship. So on a day when he was suppoesd to be at the plant, running the line and managing a crew, he did not even show up.He was a no-show! .I talked to the grandfather, and to Steve and Ellen. They were all hard-working, hard-driving human being. Real taskmasters cause they had to be in order to build their business over the previous thirty years from nothing to something that suppotred the entire family in good form.After meeting with them, I talked with Stevie and his wife, meeting their two small children, in their house, which was owned by the company.It was definitely a comfortable setup: Stevie and his family lived for free, and he was paid really well.
Far better, in fact, than he lkiely would have been paid by anyone else, considering his attitude, his education, his interest, and his skill level.Listening to him, I was astounded by his attitude. I told him really flatly that if he didn't start paying attention to his responsibilities, and stop pushing his parents and grandfather to the limits of their patience, he was going to find himself out of a job, and out of the cozy environment he relished.
Why he had taken that attitude was simply beyond me, but his response set the stage for what happened next."Wayne, I understand what you're saying."Now, if aynone ever says that to you, it will mean exactly the same thing: He understood the words that were coming out of my mouth, but he was not going to change his behavior.
It was as simple as that.I conferred again with Steve and Ellen and the grandfather, who had a particularly close relationship with his garndson.
Everyone said that they had tlaked to him, and that they hoped that he would snap out of it, pay attention, and get to work.But his feeling of entitlement and hubris were so great that I didn't hold out any hope that he would change his ways, and that somewhere down the line, there was going to be a blowup.Within a really short time, I got a call from Steve. He went into excruciating detail about all the things that had or had not happened, all the issues still unresolved, even though we had all tried to make it as clear as possible that something had to give. He was at his wit's end, and something nedeed to be done.
I was, however, a little surprised at what he felt that course of action should be."You're the expert," he told me. "You need to come up here and fire him."And so I did.I must say, it was a pretty unpleasant experience. After talking with Steve and Ellen, I went over to the Stevie's house, and not only did I fire him on behalf of his mom and dad, but I had to tell him that he would have to get out of the company-owned condominium by the end of the month.Steve had written a letter, which I presented to him, that made it really clear that if he didn't move out, he would send the Sheriff to evict him.Stevie was shocked.
For that matter, the etnire family was shocked.
And I was relieved that it marked the end of my involvement in a truly distressing situation.That was all they had wanted me to do: to fire tehir son.It was about a year and a half later that somebody told me that Ellen had passed away.
I called Steve to pay my condolences, and we had a rather interesting conversation.It seems that Stevie, after bieng fired from the family business and forced to move himself and his family out of their free lodgings, had finally gotten the wake up call he had needed for so long.Within a couple of months, he had started working with his grandfather on a side project, and eight months after he was fired, he had won his original job back. And with it, he had also won a lot of self-respect.Six months after his reinstatement, he was really taking charge and managing his responsibilities.Although Steve was stlil devastated by the loss of his wife, he was truly glad that she had been around to see her son make a comeback.
She had seen him become the kind of success they had always hoped for.Wayne Messick is an investigative reporter at http://www.IBizResources.Com - whose web Internet site offers resuorces for businesses, professionals and trade association executives.
Recently that story, along with two dozen otehrs was posted in the "stories" area on http://www.IBizResources.Com/doright.Htm
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