Ralph Carlson Blog

I need your help.

I have been an employee for most of my life, some of that as a management employee meaning that I supervised the activities of others and had responsibility for activities bigger than I could pull off on my own. What amazes me is that even though our education system is oriented to developing employees who expect to spend their productive lives dependent on somebody else, we are not training them in the responsibilities that go with being an employee or the expectations from the boss or business owner towards an employee.

I have put together a list which captures the responsibilities of an employee and a manager/boss based upon my experience. I think it covers the big points but I know that anything based upon one person’s experience is sure to be missing something- or several somethings. I would like to ask readers to add, comment or critique my list so that with more experience and though, we can make it better.

Employee:

1.Perform required tasks

2.Support business goals

3.Maintain a positive attitude

4.Seek better ways to do the job

Boss/Manager

1.Provide clear directions

2.Respond immediately and completely to questions about job

3.Review work and provide comments in a timely fashion

4.Identify and remove barriers to employee doing job

5.Provide necessary tools and training

Corporate/Owner

1.Arbitrate disputes fairly

2.Be transparent in all actions

3.Walk the talk

Making the Relationship Work

You can see that I am focusing on the main reason for the job which is performing the tasks which lead the business to success so there is no consideration of benefits and salary here. I don’t mean to say that they are not important but my interest is in the relationship between the employee and the supervisor and creating a good environment for the employee to be successful and the boss to be satisfied.

Look at my lists of responsibilities and tell me what you think is good and what I am missing. How did you learn what you know about this relationship? Why do you think we let our kids grow up to be employees without giving them any training in how to be successful?

Add your feedback

With your comments, I would like to revisit this list and make it more comprehensive.

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responsibility, Work

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24350382@N07/ / CC BY 2.0

First Impressions Count

Its not a frivolous question.  We all make snap judgments about people in our lives and it is particularly important the first time you meet a new person.  What you see tells you what that person thinks about himself.  Does he care about his appearance?  What impression is he trying to make?

Read the rest of this entry

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first impressions, recognition, responsibility

 A coupe of posts caught my eye this week talking about education. They were both inspired by a post by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits in which he advocates turning education on its head.  Lisa at Craving Balance thinks about her son and decides that education will ruin him – if not now, then later.  Aidan at Ivy League Insecurities is more positive about education – or at least hers even though she has veered off the corporate track.  As for me, I have been unsatisfied with public education since our first son attended school in the 80’s.  It is designed for the ‘ follow the dots’ child and has no tolerance for others.  My older son did just enough to get through high school, hating every minute, and refused college.  My younger had great fun and wasn’t expected to do anything more.  It’s an outdated model we cling to and it handicaps our teachers and does great damage to out youth by letting them stay immature mentally much too long.

I have just read A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-first Century.  I was blown away with the insight that had eluded me about what is wrong about education today. Oliver DeMille identifies the myth that prevents any solution of the education ‘problem’.  This myth is that it is possible for one human being to educate another.  He goes on to say that “Teaching, not education, should be our focus because great teaching inspires students to educate themselves.  We are great believers these days in passive living.  Let the system educate our kids.  Let the system decide what health care we need or deserve.  Let the government take care of us.  Another of his points is that education is geared to training professionals but does nothing to train leaders and we suffer mightily from this failure.  He suggests that we look at the kind of education that the early leaders of our country – Thomas Jefferson is a prime example- received.  He asks what teaching allowed them to be the thinkers and writers that so influenced the founding of our country.  Simply put Mr. DeMille identifies four phases of education.  The core phase (ages 0-8) focuses on a foundation of right and wrong, good and bad with little imphasis on early acquisition of reading and writing skills, letting them develop according to the inclination of the individual. The second phase is Love of Learning (8-12) in which the child develops basic levels of understanding of the vaious fields of study as well as continuing to develop his understanding of identity and community.  The next phase is the Scholar Phase (12-16) where the student learns to assume more and more responsibility for learning.  The final phase is the Depth Phase (16-22) where the hunger for leaning is nurtured by a relationship with a mentor to guide this growth.

Now I wish I could go back and get involved with my sons’ education, perhaps even homeschooling.  How can a responsible thinking person risk the future of their children to public education?  I guess by sleepwalking  just like I did.  There is a better way, but it’s not easy- like sending your kids to public school- it requires you to take charge.

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education problem, learning, public education, responsibility, thomas jefferson education

Looking back on my life, I find that much of the time I was waiting for something to happen.  It might be a person. It might be an event.  It might be a vision. But it was like being stuck in mud with the only hope of getting out being some outside force.  It seems incredible that I accepted this limitation.  I don;t mean that I was a passive slug never getting out of my comfort zone.  I went to college.  Excelled in some things. Was adequate in others.  But the things I did were within the conventions that ruled my life.  I was always hoping for some outside force to take me somewhere new- somewhere exiting.

I don’t know where that model for living comes from.  I guess it is one I formed from watching people in my life.  Certainly we get the idea that chance or luck is somehow important in determining how things turn out from our culture.  People hope for some kind of intervention to take their existence from marginal or ordinary to special.  They buy lottery tickets.  They imagine a long lost rich relative leaving them an inheritance.  Many of the plots for movies or TV shows are built around some fantastic intervention in the lives of ordinary people that takes them on an unexpected adventure. Nowhere do you see the idea that you are the one.  Is it the creeping nanny state controlling and limiting more and more of life that sets us up to be dependent?

For myself, It makes me sad when I think about all that time waiting.  What was I thinking?  Why was I so passive and inert? What made me so dependent in my thinking and actions? I don’t know.  I wasn’t the only one.  And there were a few daring souls who made their lives into glorious, or at least interesting adventures. What is the difference that made them take those risks and soar?  What made them think that they were in charge? And what made me know that I was not?

Now I understand just what a handicap that mindset has been for me.  All around me I was attributing the success of others who were taking responsibility for their lives to luck or chance while waiting passively for my bit of good fortune.  All that time wasted makes me sick.  Considering that I have achieved some success in my life, can I even imagine what I might have been able to do if I had just acted.  Now I realize that I am the most important force in my life.  I can cramp that force so that it can only operate in reactive mode or I can release it to be the dynamic and powerful engine that can take me anywhere.  My engine is running but only I can decide whether to stay in neutral or shift into drive.  If I stay in neutral, I can be pushed in any direction by any outside force.  If I shift into drive, then I decide where I go and how fast I want to get there.

I often heard as I grew up people say that you can be anything you want to be in America.  Somehow, there is a disconnect between the talk- “You can be anything you want to be.” and the walk- “Don’t make a fool of yourself.” That makes most of us wimpish about facing life. That is how it worked for me.

How different would my life be today if instead of waiting for outside forces to sweep through my life and get me moving in whatever direction they were going, I had become that force.  Is it too late?  I hope not.  Anybody out there relate?  Share your thoughts with me.

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comfort zone, conventions, Life, responsibility, success, waiting