Stewardship, 2nd Edition

Facts Won’t Help

Bystanders enter the game by withholding commitment. They want proof that stewardship works. Whatever form your revolution takes, whether it is site-based management, self-managing teams, or direct-billing the services of staff groups, bystanders want to know where it has been tried and what were the results; and if it has not been tried, why would we “experiment” on our own bodies? Like the engineering manager who asked, “Has this been tried in a sixty-five-person company in the packaging machinery business, and what were the results?” Needless to say, this manager ran an engineering group in a sixty-five-person packaging machinery company. When an executive in Kansas City asked, “Do you have evidence that a company’s stock ...