(a prose poem by John Cowan)
A couple of decades ago, when I was about sixty-five, I found
myself a seat in the monthly meeting of The Association of
Organization Development’s Minnesota Chapter. (O.D. for short)
This would be about the year 2000 and some time before that I
had hung up my career in O.D. for the tamer or at least different
career of being the temporary pastor of dysfunctional Episcopal
churches, with the intention to fix them. I was successful in that
because as you might suspect most churches preferred being
cured. The challenge is to effect the mood by being deeply
spiritual, peaceful and happy, and staying out of the way of the
parishioners’ better intentions, and giving them room to speak
their anger.
The Association meeting was slow starting as we were waiting for
the speaker who never showed. Not to worry, we had forty people
in the room who could organize a meeting at the drop of a
microphone and one of them did.
“O.K.” he said. “I need about seven relevant topics up here on the
board, then we will let you join the group of your interest, talk, and
report out for the benefit of all.” Simple, straight forward, and
possibly interesting. So, he began the drill. The fifth person to
offer a topic, the head of the O.D. department of one of the largest
companies in the United States, said, “I want to explore why my
career has been a failure.”
Quiet ensued. Quite a bit of it.
When we went back through the topics five people rose to sit with
him because they too wanted to explore the failure of their
careers. Five of the most well known and up to this moment most
respected O.D. consultants in the Twin Cities.
All these people in the failure group were acquaintances of mine,
and all outstripped me in the blue ribbons they had earned over
the years. If they failed, and if one indication of success was
money earned, I earned enough, but much less than they did, I
had failed also. But I did not feel like a failure. So, I joined another
group. I do not remember what my group talked about.
But I remember what the failures said. Management sold on
remarkable and exciting plans, some apparent changes, and then
over years falling short of expectations. They did not create the
promised land.
I had lucked into a different world. When I came to Honeywell in
1961 the two O.D. guys I joined were pushing a program that
started with classes on team behavior. For a week, day and late
into the night, in small groups, the trainees competed with the
other groups on artificial problems and then discussed their team
and personal behavior, assisted by some psych information, some
testing, but mostly the responses of their teammates.
I asked a graduate months later if the six days had done any
good. He said they had taught him what a team was and he could
not imagine a live human being who after that experience could
consider as the ideal anything less. We, the consultant team,
never looked to the entire division to measure our
accomplishment, we measured ourselves on those who charged
back to work, now unwilling to settle for the old definition of
“team.”
We branched out from teaching in these classes to also assisting
our former students with teambuilding exercises in the teams they
worked in, using their behavior in real work as the target of
change. By the time I left Honeywell employment, this was not an
orderly process. We worked with whichever teams wanted us to
work and whichever groups seemed to share our hopes for what
a team should be, whether or not they had attended our training
events. But supported by the reputation of a team training that
had changed lives in the educational environment.
That process got me a successful start. Success was not
achieved by me and my fellow teachers. It was achieved by those
we taught. But we shared in the glow of their successes.
Years later as I was beginning to consult in an organization
primarily of diesel mechanics, (five garages of a city bus
company,) right from the get-go I suggested we needed a steering
committee of about five mechanics to help us decide what to do
about anything. Management appointed five guys who reluctantly
came to our first meeting and dragged their feet through a painful
going nowhere process.
Close to quitting time somebody asked what time it was and I, as
the only possessor of a watch in the room, said we had about
fifteen minutes before the quitting bell. One of the mechanics
turned to the Superintendent, the only management in the room,
and said how lousy it was to be on the South side of the building
where there was no clock. Guys on the North side had a wall
clock they could see. (When working with diesel bus motors it is
wise to have nothing dangling, even a watch.) The Super said
stuff like that will get worked on once we get started with the
program. Lots of people grunted, and we went home, adjourning
until the next day.
On his way to work, the Super stopped at a hardware store and
bought a clock. He came early to the evening meeting, found a
nail and a hammer, and hung the clock on the South wall. As
each mechanic entered, that person spontaneously made a
positive comment about that clock.
We sat down to work. Suddenly we were a team, and I was a
success. The consultant who followed me after I moved on to
other pastures told me I was a legend. I told him that if the Super
had not hung a clock on the South wall, I would have been a
nobody. Perhaps even more important than that, within a couple
of weeks, the leadership team was no longer referred to by the
mass of mechanics as “suck holes.” Quite an improvement in the
atmosphere.
My Dad for some time was the President of a Union, Local 340,
Plumbers and Pipefitters, at the Minneapolis Gas Company. He
also was a whizz with numbers. 11:00 p.m. as I emerged from
watching the TV in the basement, he had the financial section of
an upcoming contract spread out on the kitchen table. He wearily
looked up at me looking down at it, and said, out of nowhere,
“This is not about money, John. This is about respect!” And then
put his nose back into the numbers.
I thought the mechanic wanted a clock on the South wall so he
could tell the time. Maybe that too, but the Super gave him what
he wanted as well, respect. The Super could have written a note,
handed it to a secretary, who would have turned it into a work
order which would have required a requisition for a clock, which
would have needed a carpenter, (Union shop!) and an electrician
(Union Shop!) By the time it was hung, my reason for being there
would have been smothered in the ill will greasy diesel mechanics
give to strangers in business suits. Once the Super started the
ball rolling, I became a legend, on the good will and intelligence
and effort of others, pretty much. That is I became: A SUCCESS.
I did some things right. When I was heading out to administer a
Questionnaire on employee feelings about needed changes
somebody said, “Don’t worry about the night shift, they are always
skipped for stuff like this.”
Guess where I started. Where my Daddy said I should.
People who are not respected are deeply appreciative of those
who give them some. Now that I think of it, that may have been
where the legend began. My staggering around half asleep
soliciting the opinions of the night shift. (One midnight sit down
with a group, the foreman pointed to a guy in the back row
wearing a bandana for a hat and suggested I be careful with him
because he was crazy. He said, “Crazy people need jobs too!” I
was very careful.)
My dad went on at some length some nights, about what a great
man the company president was. And why did my dad think him
great? He showed great respect for Charlie Cowan. I too feel
immense respect for Mr. Mullin. And my reason? The only thing I
knew about him is that he had great respect for Charlie Cowan.
Good Idea