When
I first read about Morning Star I was very impressed and a little jealous to
see how well this company seemed to do without “managers”. Of course as a manager my first thought was “well
there goes my job” but as I read deeper into the article I see how complex and
dynamic this company really is. Everyone
is held accountable here not just management.
Most organizations including the one I work for have management and
directors to look up to lead and direct and let’s face it be the “fall guy” if
needed. Someone has to be to blame when
something goes wrong don’t they?
The
approach that Morning Star uses is that everyone is empowered they are not
employees they are colleagues. Everyone
has a say in pretty much every aspect of the company from writing their version
of a mission statement to ordering supplies to helping with the hiring process. When everyone feels that they have input into
the company people may take more initiative and take more personal pride in their
job.
I read this article a couple of times and
tried to put my organization in place of Morning Star to see how it would
fare. First so many of us are used to
being lead so I think that would be a big adjustment and I believe that many
people would quit because of this.
Change is not something most people can deal with and I was surprised by
the number of people who quit when Campus Solutions was brought on board. If our organization ran closer to this model
I believe we would see more loyalty, more innovation and more accountability. It would be our company not just some place
we work for. People would take more
pride in their work.
I
do believe that there are many people to whom this is just a job, it is somewhere to
go and collect a check at the end of the day.
The biggest challenge would be to get out of the mindset that we all are
used to. Within my department we are a
team yes and there is a director and managers but input is gathered from everyone
and everyone’s thoughts and ideas are heard.
Because of the complexity of our organization I don’t think that we
could go all the way and adapt Morning Star’s concepts however we can
definitely implement some of these things to improve the company.
I
think it would a good start to have everyone write down a personal mission to
see where we are as an organization as a whole.
What do we stand for? Do we want
the same things for our company? It may
be very surprising to see the results of this but it would give the upper
management an idea of where we need to go in the future. Encourage stronger skills and creativity among
everyone not just management. These seem
simple but I think they are a good way to get everyone to think outside the
box. We have to look to the future and
take it to the next level without fear of change.
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