The Motivation to Actively Care

How You Can Make it Happen

E. Scott Geller, Bob Veazie

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781683504733
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Behavioural Management

This refreshing teaching/learning narrative, based on actual life events and research-supported principles, begins with the lead character (Joanne Cruse) losing her job as the Safety Director for a large manufacturing company. Subsequently, her former psychology professor, Dr. Pitz ("Doc"), invites her to try out for a position as leadership consultant with his firm, Make-A-Difference, Inc. (MAD) that helps companies cultivate a self-motivated and personally-engaged workforce. Throughout her probationary period, Joanne travels with the top consultant at MAD (Mickey Vasquez) to visit a number of organizations struggling with various occupational issues related to the human dynamics of self-motivation (i.e., working to accomplish an organization's milestone from a self-directed or self-accountability mindset). The interpersonal and group interactions Joanne experiences at diverse organizations, accompanied by Mickey's professional coaching, reveal twenty practical and profound leadership lessons to nurture an actively caring for people work culture in which employees put forth their best efforts on behalf of their company's mission.

Chapter 1

“Success is never final and failure never fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.”

—Winston Churchill

I BLINK AGAINST THE late morning sun (late morning, of course it looks strange, you’re never out here at this time of day comes the unbidden thought) and I force myself to concentrate on the dark green Honda in the half-filled parking lot dead ahead. My arms clutch the cardboard box blindly to me and I thinks maybe I can count steps, here, nothing to it, twenty steps to go, maybe less, blink, bright sun, blink, (don’t cry don’t cry,) fourteen steps now, the dry sound of the asphalt under my heels, ten steps, kid stuff, nearly there, come on (don’t you do it, don’t you dare cry, don’t, don’t) three, two one…and with a loud exhale I allow the box to drop onto the roof of the small car.

The small, hollow movements from within the box serve as a bitter reminder of how few things it actually holds. Twenty-two years, and the physical evidence of my time on the job doesn’t even fill a single, small box. My coffee mug. The three small plaques from the consecutive years in which my team had exceeded the corporate safety goals. My signed copies of Doc’s last two books. The framed picture of Keith and our kids, smiling out, Mother’s Day 2008, the frame says, “We Are So Proud of You!” and, and (don’t cry don’t do it not here not where they can see)

…and would they be proud today, of this, not likely…

Fumbling my keys out of my purse, the key ring slips from my fingers, and in twisting to catch them my shoulder brushes against the box and now it’s falling, it’s that kind of day, there it goes, sliding in slow, inexorable motion down the side of the car, the lid falling open, the contents tumbling, tumbling… I half lunge, my hands groping to try and catch something, anything, missing everything, the dull crack of ceramic on asphalt, and a higher-pitched, crisp >TIK!< and I know, even before I look, the glass covering the picture of Keith and the kids…yep. A big crack, forking and reforking into a tiny splintering web in the corner.

I pick it up gingerly and a large piece falls out, tinkling into smaller pieces as it hits the pavement below and somehow that’s it, that’s the last straw; I know distantly that for perfect cornball irony the picture should have been something of me working happily at my job, what job Jo, right, former job, my past, cracking into sharp and cutting splinters but here, “We Are So Proud Of You!” broken, which is exactly the way I feel…and it’s stupid, I know it’s stupid but I can’t help it, the tears come and my breath shudders into heaving sobs and I sag against the car, bereft and so alone.

After only a moment I start to feel the wall of blank, corporate glass staring down at me from the other side of the parking lot. I imagine eyes on the other side of that glass, watching, whispering, who is that, is that Joanne Cruse, did you hear what happened, oh no…It’s more than I can take; in quick, jerky movements I sweep my things into my box, noting absently when the sharp edge of the chipped mug catches my knuckle and the blood starts to flow, fine, might as well leave a little blood on the ground while I’m making my getaway, stride around half blindly to the driver’s side, toss the box over to the passenger seat and climb in, stabbing the key into the ignition and twisting it savagely, feeling the little engine catch before I smash the accelerator, revving it and then dropping it into reverse, lurching backward out of the spot, braking hard, shove the gear shift forward, stomp on the gas, the tires chirping as my little car hurtles out of the parking lot, swerving wildly onto the access road.

ONCE I’M ON THE ROAD I calm down a fraction and ease off the gas. No sense getting killed. The headlines would be too perfect: “Award Winning Safety Director Killed Doing Sixty in a Twenty-Five.” Just as I achieve a more safe and sane speed, tinny music blares from my cell phone: Bette Midler singing “You Gotta Have…Frriieeee-eennnnddss.” I smile, Jeff.

Jeff’s more than a friend. He’s an advisor and a confidante and a defender and a wingman. If he weren’t gay I’m certain we would have generated enormous amounts of office romance gossip. (Who knows, maybe we did anyway.) He’s a rare combination of no-nonsense, bottom-line assessments mixed with sly humor, and he runs the Quality Division of Perfect Plastics with cool efficiency.

He’s also the first person in the company I turn to when I have a problem. A couple of years ago I had a huge problem with our old General Manager (stop saying “our” Jo, it’s “their” now), and Jeff hadn’t known me very well at the time but he had seen someone being wronged and just like that, he stepped in to help. We’ve been good friends ever since, and I’ve always hoped I’d get to return the favor someday. Seems less likely as of about two hours ago.

I grab the phone and thumb the button, “Hey Jeff.”

“Joanne!” His voice crackles with cell phone static but his concern is still audible. “I just heard something insane; tell me it’s not true.”

I try to laugh. “Depends on what you heard. If you heard I no longer get the employee discount in the cafeteria, you heard right.”

“Oh honey…I’m so sorry…”

The pained sympathy in his voice makes my eyes brim full again. It’s the kind of friend he is—when you’re happy, he’s happy, and when you’re hurting, he’s hurting. Thin attempts at humor are pointless, he’ll just see through them to the pain underneath. I blink quickly, trying to clear my vision.

“Listen Jeff, I’m on the four-sixty bypass and the cell phone is trying to squirt away from my ear, lemme find a place to pull over and call you right back.”

“I’m right here, doll.” I hear the beeps of the disconnect and I toss the cell phone onto the seat next to me. More ironic headlines: “Ex-Safety Director Drives Blind While on Cell Phone.” Sub-headline: “Began Defying Death Upon Exiting Office for Last Time.”

Yeesh. Get a grip, girl. There we go, Kwik Stop, that’s exactly what I’ll do, stop real quick…I grab the phone and punch speed-dial. Jeff picks up immediately, “You at the Kwik Stop?” he asks and I have to laugh. “What’s so funny?” he asks, mock-wounded, “It’s the only logical stop in the first seven miles from here.” A head full of trivia, that’s our Jeff. (their Jeff, whispers the devil who’s been living in my brain for the last couple of hours, he’s not yours anymore and I feel a stab of pain. Will I wake up in six months to discover this friendship ended the same day as my paychecks?)

“Jeff, we’re not gonna fade out of each other’s lives, are we?” I hear myself asking anxiously. “We won’t let this be an excuse to fall out of touch, will we?”

His voice is soft and soothing. “I am wayyy harder to get rid of than that, and I’m not looking for any excuse to fall out of touch, now listen, I need you to take a deep breath and just…tell me.” Such an easy request. So hard to perform. The deep breath makes some of the sobs locked in my chest break apart and start to dissolve. It feels good. I do it again. Now for the “Tell me” half of the equation.

A third deep breath and then “I got called in to see Kathy Miller right after our morning meeting…” In telling it, my mind travels back. Allllll the way back to two hours ago. It feels like a lifetime. In a way, perhaps it is.

I had come into work today feeling upbeat and happy, the way I usually feel. I loved my job; I loved the people I worked with and I loved the fact that my job actually made a difference. We saw to it that people working in a dangerous environment went home whole. Perfect Plastics had the same hazards as any manufacturing operation, but had significantly fewer injuries and no fatalities on my watch—ever. Not one. These men and women went home every night to their families and took care of themselves and each other every day, and as Director of Safety I played a big role in that. It felt good.

We’d had our normal meeting this morning. It’s just a chance to share observations from the previous day’s work, bring up any topics that need attention. One of the reasons our record is so good is that the workers own the process; they all feel personally responsible whenever anyone is injured. These morning meetings are part of how that ownership is ongoing.

We wrapped up and I was on my way to check some figures for a study which had asked permission to use our plant as a baseline model for excellence in safety—flattering to be asked, but I wanted to make sure their numbers were accurate. But before I could get to my desk, our floor receptionist Melissa said “Joanne, Kathy Miller wants to see you up in the Tower right away.”

The Tower: The top-floor office with huge, tinted windows which oversaw the plant floor on one side and the administrative floor on the other. It was the traditional roost of the plant’s GM and it held a certain sense of foreboding. Trips to the Tower were never fun. In fact, Jeff and I had met and bonded over an experience which began with the Tower’s previous inhabitant, who had moved on two years ago and left in his place the icily-quiet Katherine Miller.

Jeff interrupts my reflecting, “Did you have any idea what she wanted?”

I sigh, “No. I mean, it’s the Tower, she’s not having me up for tea and crumpets, but I figured she wanted to emphasize the importance of some upcoming benchmark or something, you know?”

“Mmmm” Jeff agrees. If you don’t know him, he might sound as though he’s not paying full attention, but I know it’s the opposite—he’s so dialed in he’s got nothing left for chatter. Listening as hard as he can. Hoping he’ll hear something he can do to help.

As I’m telling him, I can’t help thinking about how dreamlike the whole episode feels, especially my memory of the elevator ride. I had pushed the top button and felt the same sense of increasing dread I had felt anytime I found myself in this dark, wood-paneled compartment. Some people compare it to an elevator to your dentist for root canal, some people say it’s actually a trick and you’re traveling down ten-thousand feet to a subterranean lair, but no matter what stories we tell each other afterward, it’s never a fun ride.

“Before I knew it, Katherine was gesturing me into a chair and telling me she was sorry, she was going to have to keep things brief, she was sure I was aware of the challenges facing the company with profits being eroded from overseas competitors and fewer manufacturer’s placing the kinds of advance orders that keep our cash flow viable, and while I tried to think of something hopeful to say she pushed a Work Force Reduction package across her desk at me and said, “I’m afraid we’re out of options.”

Jeff stops me again. “Hang on,” he says, as though seeking some hidden punch line. “She WFR’d you? Like that?”

“Oh, no it gets better,” I answer him, a small, bitter laugh escaping me. “I just stared at the package, you know, it was just jamming in my head, Work Force Reduced, me, today, now, no, it can’t be, and I asked her something like ‘but what will happen to the Safety Program, you can just pitch it’ and then she waved her hand, waved her hand, okay, like some petty little duchess who didn’t like her dessert, and she says ‘That will fall under HR now—the program is so smooth, it practically runs itself.’”

I can hear Jeff’s mental gears grinding. “Wait, slow down, she—she said your program, your program, doesn’t need you?”

“That’s right. And then she kinda smiles like we’re pals and she says, ‘I guess if you hadn’t done such a good job we wouldn’t be able to trim your office.’”

“Oh Good Heavens…” I can hear from his voice that Jeff has actually tipped his head back, away from his phone’s mouthpiece.

There’s a weird masochism in it for me now, a fascination with exactly how badly I can make it hurt, like poking at a sore tooth, and I tell him the coup de grace: “But Jeff listen, she sits there after she says this and can see me, like, just, you know, system failure, blue screen, I can’t process any of it, and I feel her staring at me, kind of intrigued, right, like I’m some bug in a science project and she asks, ‘Are you surprised?’”

“NO!!” He’s aghast. I can’t blame him. I am too, actually; I’ve just had a few more minutes to get used to the idea.

“Yup,” I nod, as though he can see me, and then I can feel my voice wavering again. “It was like she was almost…amused, you know? Like I’m a story she’s gonna tell to all the other executioners later, like how could she not know it was coming, what a moron!”

“Jo, how could you have ev—?”

“I FEEL LIKE AN IDIOT!!” I shriek, and I’m not shrieking at Jeff really, I’m shrieking at the whole universe...