Thinking big by thinking small

Michael Greene -- Home Textiles Today, 3/26/2001

Some corporations think big. Some corporations think small. Some corporations think teams. And a load of corporations don't think at all.

Some companies think quarterly. Some companies think annually. Some companies think weekly. Some companies don't think at all.

Some companies think teams. Some companies think groups. Some companies think charts. Some companies think people. And once in a while some companies and corporations think individuals.

And, sadly, most businesses only think dollars.

However, even amidst all this hop, skip and jumpin', I have a belly feeling that times are a-changin'. Cracks are starting to show in corporate armor, and it's good for their souls. Cracks are good, Michael? Yes, when a crack isn't a leak but rather a twist in direction. In technique. In thinking. It's good.

A while back I received a booklet from one of my grandsons that was sent to him by a major, major corporation that was interested in his jumping aboard their choo-choo train. Jumping aboard and tying his future to theirs.

This booklet was no ordinary hoopla. It was an eighteen-page affair, on heavy, neat stock, with four-color illustrations about what the corporation does, the kind of persons they'd enjoy having aboard and a list of the goodies they disburse with their compensation.

Goodies like time off when family needs pull at your heart and schedule. Time off for extra time accumulated, ample training (organized), and earned vacations.

To me, this whole attempt was a reverse scenario. The biggie corporation writing their own resume instead of just scanning those submitted by prospective candidates. They wanted my grandson aboard and weren't bashful to say so. Never have I seen a shtick like it in my over 60 years in the business world!

It was right up my philosophy alley. The biggie realizing that the employee-corporation relationship is a two-way street. That the biggie could only continue to blossom by hiring the best they could find and to acknowledge the best. This kind of thinking can make the total business structure add up to more than the individual parts. That somewhere high up in the boardroom tower someone was dreaming that by reinforcing the power of its "little people" overall corporate power could increase.

Could it be that some chief honcho believed that "kids" today are not just job hunting but want the spiritual pluses of producing and belonging, while still having a life of their own.

Is this "thing" just a biggie idea? No way. Because the principles of individual identification, recognition and belonging are everyone's wise business thing ... even on Main Street. Size is not the measurement. The thinking is.

Thanks, again, for listening.