Who in your company can you trust?

by Dave Potter

The owner of a small company once told me that the major problem at his firm was that too many decisions that could be made at a lower level were trickling up to his level for approval. His words were: “I wish they would think things through on their own! I haven’t got time for all this hand-holding! How can I make them self-sufficient?”.

I then went and talked to his employees, and without mentioning the owner’s concern, asked them what they thought was the major difficulty in getting things done. Can you guess what they said?

Almost to a person, they said that the the owner was micro-managing them, second-guessing them to death. When I asked for examples, I got many instances of their decisions being reversed at the last minute, and even one case of a routine letter to a client which was returned, with major corrections, six times before being approved. One person said, “What does he need us for if he’s going to undo everything we do and rewrite everything we write?” As a result, the employees came to expect him to modify their decisions, so they held back from putting their heart and soul into their work and the owner got less than their best.

Although the owner TOLD his people he wanted them to make their own decisions, his actions indicated otherwise. It wasn’t a matter of competency. The owner had taken great care to hire intelligent and able employees. The core issue was one of trust. He didn’t trust them to exercise the very intelligence and ability he hired them for.

What would it feel like to be in a company that practiced and demonstrated a deep trust and respect between the employees and management? A place where it wasn’t just lip-service, but an underlying reality that permeated every relationship within and without the company?

It would probably feel a lot like Bon Terra America, a Genesee, Idaho company that produces erosion control products. They are growing and successful, with 52 employees and products that are used world-wide for such projects as reclaiming a river-bank at a Chesapeake Bay wildlife refuge or saving a Pennsylvania golf course from runaway erosion.

I went to visit them a few weeks ago, and from my first step into the reception area, I immediately felt a sense of competence and good-will. When I asked Toney Driver, the founder and president, what his secret was, he said it was very simple. He gives his employees good training, good wages and benefits, but most important was the trust he had for his employees to make the right decisions, and the way he involved all levels in important company issues.

I looked for signs that what I was being told was more than the positive spin an owner naturally and unconsciously applies to his own organization.

I asked Leslie, Bon Terra’s customer service representative, if Toney truly trusted her and the other workers to make the right decisions on their own. She said when someone came to him with a problem, he would often say “Go back and think about it and do what you think is right. I know you will do the right thing.”

I asked Leslie, “Isn’t this too trusting? Does this really work? What if they make a bad decision on their own?” She said she once made a serious error in assigning sales commissions that resulted in an upset sales rep and Bon Terra having to pay the commission twice. Toney’s response? He simply said, “Did you learn from that?” and that was the last time it ever came up. And, of course, she never made that mistake again.

When Bon Terra first moved to Genesee, Toney noticed that tools kept disappearing from the shops and the work floor. Rather than crack down on the employees with additional controls, he gave them access to funds that came from selling scrap materials so they could replenish the tools themselves. From that point on, when a tool disappeared, they were to use the scrap fund to replace it.

Suddenly, tools stopped disappearing and money started accumulating in the scrap fund. With the money in the fund, they decided to buy a “pulse-cutter”, a $1500 tool that the company could not have afforded before, and which greatly increased the efficiency of their operation. By skillfully giving them ownership of the problem and trusting them to do the right thing, everybody came out ahead.

After visiting Bon Terra, I wonder if the real question is not “Can you afford to trust your employees to make the right decisions?”, but “Can you afford not to?”

Originally published by the Lewiston Tribune - Business Times, November 1997, Lewiston, Idaho