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Hank

On 2/23/2014 8:38 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 2/23/2014 7:57 AM, F*O*A*D wrote:
On 2/23/14, 1:17 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 22 Feb 2014 21:53:02 -0500, "Earl! " . wrote:

F*O*A*D wrote:

The state's politicians poisoned the well with direct and indirect
threats to jobs.
Cite?

It is another stretch of the facts from Harry. What the state said is
they *might* rethink FUTURE tax incentives for NEW plants. It had
nothing to do with current employees.

Uh-huh, sure, Gregg. Right. Of course. And Senator Corker didn't play a
role at the end, either, and the workers weren't left with the
impression that if they voted union the state might play fun and games
with their employer. Well, we shall see what happens. Corker said if the
workers voted no, VW would be building another plant in their state
then...he reneged on that statement after the vote, and that had nothing
to do with the vote, either. Luckily, VW's workers in Germany will have
something to say about future plants in the United States.

I had two business associates who were executives in a major German
engineering and manufacturing company. Both left Germany and relocated
to the US. One joined and later started a similar company here. The
other joined my company. Why? Because the German style of
management/employee co-running the business drove them nuts.

I had a very democratic philosophy in the running of the business I had
but soon realized that there were limits to how much control employees
should have in decision making. It's not that the corporation's goals
were at odds with the employee's ... it's simply a case where the
employees typically were looking at issues from a personal point of view
rather than a more global view required to successfully manage and run a
company. We all have jobs to do, all are important but people are
better at some things than others.

We had a very knowledgeable thin films engineer on our staff. We would
meet with a prospective customer who also had thin film engineers who
typically wrote the technical specifications and requirements for a
system they wanted us to design and build. In several cases, our
"expert" would start challenging the customer's approach because he
didn't agree with it, promoting *his* way of doing it. This happened
two or three times, resulting in customers becoming uneasy with awarding
a contract to us. To me, it's ok to offer alternative ways of doing
things if you think they will benefit the customer, but not to the point
where you are actually insulting them or causing them to think their
system will not receive our best efforts.

He didn't last long in my democracy. He ended up starting his own
company that fell flat on it's face in a short period of time.

It's kind of you to offer Harry a little insight into what business
management is all about.