Alan Crone

Well, I think, I don't know exactly when it happened, but I think that there's much more of an even playing field between labor and management now than there used to be. Although, that's not saying a whole lot. But, you know, with the gig economy... and the great resignation and all of those things really has changed the way people approach making a living.

I'm not even going to say work, because I think people now make a living and pursue careers as opposed to just going to a job. Management can no longer stand at the top of the mountain and just dictate the terms and conditions of employment. You're seeing a lot more strikes now. I don't think that that's a coincidence. Everyone from the writers and actors to

The UAW and airline employees are realizing that they've got a lot more bargaining position than they used to have. And they're flexing those muscles because people who are willing to be an employee is a shrinking amount of people. I think it means that companies have to become much more mission driven. They have to hire people that align with that mission.

That is really what's going to get you a good worker position. is someone who isn't coming to work just for the paycheck, but is coming to help you achieve a mission that they believe in.

People. People are the constant. When you're talking about any organization, but particularly a business, the people and how they relate to one another, is the constant. No matter how much you train people, no matter how much you have policies and procedures, the human condition is always going to raise its head both positively and negatively.

I mean, you're always going to have people that don't know how to act appropriately. You're always going to have people that are greedy or that want power or want to manipulate, and you've got to deal with that in your organization. You're always going to have people that Don't know whether it's intentionally or unintentionally.

Don't know how to navigate the psychosexual relationships between coworkers. And you're going to have harassers and all of those things. People is the constant. And I think that. in the early part of my career, management dealt with that by edict, my way or the highway, or you're going to do this or else and that sort of thing.

And that still works to a certain, you know, you got to have standards. But I think that dealing with that human element now is dealing with the psychology of leadership and the psychology of followers. Dealing with that is so much more of a priority now, whereas, you know, 10, 20 years ago, Managers thought they could just ignore that and be authoritarian about it.

So people would be the first constant. And then I think the other constant is a lack of communication and positive confrontation in the American business place. Management students, when they come out, they don't understand. They're not taught how to communicate. properly confront and enforce standards. And I think that causes a lot of people to be not very confident in their management style.

They don't know how to get people on the same page, so they just lay down the law. The other thing that hasn't changed is how devastating turnover is to an organization. If you're in an organization and you're constantly turning over, that's probably more of an indication about your management than it is about the people that you're hiring.

If someone comes to work for you, I would say there's that moment, that honeymoon moment when you offer the job and the person accepts. Everybody in that transaction has hope. And then when that relationship deteriorates and you have turnover, now you're back to square one. huge, huge cost to the organization, both financially and psychically, right? I mean, nobody enjoys getting fired.

Nobody enjoys firing people. If you do, then you're probably psychotic and should be doing something else. And when that happens, that's a failure of the recruitment process. It's a failure of management. It's a failure of the employee.

Now, more and more, as we get into all kinds of different management tracking and KPIs and all of that, we're having to figure out how to avoid that from happening because we can see in real time how much that turnover is costing us.

The number one. is the inability to answer this question. What do I have to do to be successful here? Again, I don't think we communicate our expectations very well to employees. Every case I've ever been involved in, even if there's intentional discrimination, intentional harassment, there's always this element of bad communication up and down the chain. Again, it goes back to mission.

How does this position fit into the mission of my company? What qualifications do I really need this person to have? How do they need to manifest those qualifications on a day-to-day basis to be successful? I tell people all the time, ask that question in an interview, and if you get a good answer, that's where you need to work. Again, I think lack of good confrontation.

People don't want to correct other people. They don't know how to go about it. And so if you haven't expressed those expectations correctly, that's one reason why people are hesitant to confront because they kind of realize either consciously or subconsciously, they really never told this person that whatever the part of this job is, is important.

I represented a man who was a 65-year-old black guy. We'll call him Jesse. Jesse had worked for this company for 30 years. It was not an upper-level position. He was kind of a supervisor, but very important for the company. He was supposed to be at the job at 8 o'clock, but for 30 years, he got to his job between 8.15 and 8.30, mainly because of the public transportation system in Memphis.

Well, for years and years and years, nobody had said anything to Jesse. He had had an African-American supervisor. They all got along well. At one point, he got a new supervisor who happened to be white. This fellow noticed, well, Jesse's coming into work 15 to 30 minutes late every day. So basically, he went up to Jesse and said, look, you're late one more time, you're fired.

Sure enough, the next day, he was 15 minutes late and he was fired. And Jesse came to my office and I said... why did they tell you that you were fired? And he said, well, it's because I was late. I said, what was the real, what do you think was the real reason you were fired? And he said, well, the only thing I can think of it is because I'm black.

I've been late for 30 years and nobody ever said a thing. Now I get a white supervisor and I'm fired. The facts of that you can argue with. And ultimately we settled the case, but it was a good illustration of this, this thing I have of confrontation. I'm not saying that being on time isn't important, but nobody had ever communicated that with Jesse. And rather than