Creating a Culture of Excellence

 (Taken from the last two pages of the Introduction section:  Why Are You Working?)

I found myself in a strange place. By most standards, I had a GREAT job! The pay was outstanding, the benefits were so good that we called our employer “Generous Motors,” my work was on the cutting edge of technology at that time, and I was given assignments far beyond what was merited in light of my resume, most of which were very high-visibility causing me to receive more personal recognition than I deserved. At the same time, I found myself resenting how much time I was spending at work. I began to arrive closer and closer to starting time, and like the vast majority of people who work in large—and largely impersonal—corporations, I came to the point where I was ready to leave the moment the time clock displayed quitting time.

In fact, one of the most important lessons I learned while working at GM was where the most dangerous place in the world is located. (In reality, this place is not unique to GM and actually exists in many organizations in all kinds of industries.) When I share with people that I learned this lesson while working at GM, many people immediately imagine large, dangerous machinery. And although we had lots of large, dangerous machinery where it is truly amazing that more people are not injured, working around that machinery was not the most dangerous place in the world. The most dangerous place in the world would have been about three feet outside any of the exit doors at quitting time—nothing could have kept anyone standing there from being trampled by the stampede of people who were running at top speed to the parking lot, where they would jump in their cars, burn some rubber getting out of the parking lots, presumably getting back to living. I know that most had been dead all day—we had become really, really good at playing the traditional American work game called “How Little Can I Do Today and Not Get Fired?” That applies to both union and non-union workers alike. In fact, I learned the game from some of the best in the engineering department. In the “old days,” our departmental secretary kept a calendar on her desk where we were supposed to check in and out of the engineering area when we went out into the million-plus-square-foot plant. Looking for a fellow engineer one day, I noticed that he had logged himself into a section of the plant with which I was unfamiliar—a place called IPH. Being a relative newcomer, that was not too surprising, so I quickly found one of the senior engineers to ask him how to find my engineer friend. Putting his index finger up to his lips in the universal signal for silence, he whispered, “That means ‘in-plant holiday’—he didn’t feel like working today, so he’s out there walking around—lost in the plant. You’ll never find him today!”

What’s wrong with the game of “How Little Can I Do Today and Not Get Fired?” It took me some time to figure this out, but there is a real and diabolical consequence of this game. Consider this: If I am really good at this game, I will figure out a way to do a little less today than yesterday. In other words, my work would be worth less today than it was yesterday. If I am successful at putting together an entire career based on this philosophy, at the end of the career, I am likely to be doing so very little that I am, indeed, worthless—at least at my job. Therein lies the real problem with the game! How are you going to feel about yourself in general if the dominant activity of your life—the thing to which you devoted the most time for the longest period of time, your life’s work—has left you feeling worthless? I have never found anyone whose attitudes and feelings about something they are doing for eight to ten hours a day do not affect how they feel about themselves and the rest of the hours they spend with family, friends, or community! It’s a devastating personal reality. Here are some of the phrases people use to describe themselves in the midst of this type of working reality.

• I feel trapped—I’ve got to work because I need the money, but I hate it!
• I have become really good at going “into my zone”—I don’t really think about anything, and that’s how I get through the day.
• Work is what I have to do—after work, it’s MY time and I do what I want to do!

So, if it’s true that work will affect us—who we really are, how we feel about ourselves, and how we relate to others—a very important, though very personal question becomes, “Am I happy with the person I am becoming?” And very specifically, “Can I recognize the impact that my work is having on me and say it is helping me become the kind of person I most want to become?”

So, again we face the question, why are you working? Stated another way, what do you really want to get out of work? Here was my answer: I yearned for work that was fulfilling, work relationships that were satisfying, and a work experience that reinforced the values in the rest of my world.

How does that sound to you? Impossible dream? Idealistic?

Like me, you may wonder if this is possible. Let me share the “end” from the “b