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Management Side
Week of 8 June 2015: Contradiction?
Sponsored by Genesis Energy, LP--your exclusive source for NAHS--1-800-422-6274

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Two weeks ago, the column in this space was titled, "Are you going to follow the rules or get something done?" Last week's column was "Integrity First." In the responses to the online quiz that went with last week's column I found this: "Last week you referred to people who aren't bound by rules as getting things done (or something to that effect). But this week you reference people of high integrity who don't take shortcuts. How do these two realms meet in what you would consider the perfect employee? If say I have high integrity, but worry you would consider me a 'rule-follower' for some of the same reasons."

That was such a great comment that we'll devote this week's column to answering it. First, however, if you don't take our quiz each week, I would encourage you to do so. It is a lot of fun and some people enjoy seeing their comments in print.

OK, let me explain the difference between the two weeks' columns by telling two true stories, slightly modified to fit our circumstances.

You were in the mill until two o'clock in the morning. You have to drive through a small village with one traffic light to get to your home. At 2:15 a.m., you pull up to the traffic light, which is red. You stop as you normally would. No one is around. You wait for what you think is the normal time for the light to change and it does not change. You start timing the light with your watch. Five minutes go by and it still has not changed. So, finally, you decide to look both ways very carefully and run the light.

You hire your neighbor's teenage son to replant some bushes in your yard. He does the job satisfactorily and you pay him. Three years go by and the bushes are looking just fine. One day when you are out in the yard, the neighbor comes over and says to you, "You know when Johnny moved those bushes for you several years ago? I had him take a couple of starts off them and put them in our yard. Come over and take a look, they are doing great!"

So I ask you in which of these cases was one's integrity violated?

If you answered the first one, you are wrong. Yes, a rule was broken in the traffic light case; in fact a law was broken. Yet clearly your response as the automobile driver was pragmatic and as safe as it could possibly be under the circumstances. After all, what are you going to do? Call the village mayor and wake her up?

In the second case, on the surface one might say no harm, no foul; in fact, you did not even know anything had been taken. However, the intent of the parent in their instructions to the teenager clearly shows they have crossed a line in their thinking. They have decided when it is appropriate to steal property clearly belonging to another, whether harm was done or not. We are now faced with asking this parent, should we want to pursue this, the following question, "Just how valuable does an item which is taken have to be for you to consider it theft?" For they have indeed crossed a line--theft is based on size, not act, to them. This is a failure in integrity. On top of that, they have set a bad example for their child.

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Now, you probably have a statement and a question for me. First, your statement is likely, "That's ridiculous, and no one can live to those standards!" My response is, "Is it?" All thieves start out with small things.

And your likely question is, "OK, Jim, do you live to these standards?" My answer is this, "Everyday I hope to." For I know I have not in the past. In fact, there is one relatively famous incident in a certain venue a number of years ago where I did not act with integrity taken to the level of these standards. Many readers of this column know about it. So, all I can say is, "I hope to in the future, for I am setting the bar very, very high."

We'll close with one more story. This is from the winter of January - February 1977. I was living in Cincinnati, Ohio. We had had mild winters for several years, but this one was cold, snowy and rough. I owned two apartment buildings. I'll state where they are, for those of you who know Cincinnati. One was on Ludlow Avenue in the "gas light" district of Clifton. The other was out in Price Hill, on Hermosa Avenue. Both were in neighborhoods where they were grandfathered in and there were single family houses all around them. My wife and I lived in the one on Ludlow Avenue. I would guess these buildings were eight miles and who knows how many traffic lights apart. My full time job was at that little old soap company in Cincinnati that happens to also be in the tissue business.

I had a part time helper who was supposed to be cleaning the sidewalks, steps and so forth of all the snow. He was failing at that (totally unreliable), so I told him I would take over and do it myself. I went over to Price Hill one evening after work, about nine o'clock. The apartment building's driveway was right next to a neighbor's driveway (the neighbor owned a single family dwelling). Even though I had very nice buildings and they had been built long before any of the houses, the neighbors all resented the existence of the apartment buildings. To make a long story short, the neighbor had shoveled his driveway snow into mine!

When I was young, I was a real hothead. I jumped in my car and went down to the precinct police station to lodge a complaint. The old desk sergeant talked me out of it. He told me that what I should do is shovel all the snow back over into the neighbor's driveway. I was of an age and temperament that this sounded like the right solution to me. I went home to Clifton and set my alarm for 3 am.

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It didn't snow any more that night, but it got cold. It must have been below zero (Fahrenheit). I drove over to Price Hill and working furiously, shoveled my driveway snow in behind the neighbor's car--packed it in tight. Then I got out a garden hose and watered the whole thing down.

It just so happened that the pastor of our church lived exactly across the street from this whole scene. When I saw him the next Sunday, he was still laughing (and, surprisingly, did not admonish me). The neighbor never shoveled his driveway into my driveway again.

OK, I committed two errors here. What are they?

One was certainly an integrity error, but it probably is not what you think it is. The integrity error, from this many years' distance, is that my off-hours behavior probably left me a bit sleepless and not able to perform my job for that little old soap company to my highest level of capabilities the next day (I told you the bar was high). My off-hours antics left me unprepared to give my fullest measure of work to my employer.

The other error was acting out what my best friend calls "Murder by Memo." In a case of Murder by Memo, you don't have the guts to confront someone and send that person a blasting letter or email instead. It is the coward's way out of confrontation. In this case, I acted out all aspects of Murder by Memo with my iceberg making activities.

We have wandered around quite a bit this week. Now what do you think of integrity? You may take our quiz here.

For safety this week, the antics I have described above, especially in the last vignette, are indication of a lack of focus on safety. Go forth and do better, please.

Be safe and we will talk next week.

You can own your Nip Impressions Library by ordering "Raising EBITDA ... the lessons of Nip Impressions."


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