Here's a story. A man who was to go away for a long time on business left his business in the charge of a younger man who understood the way he thought and his way of doing business. The young man was left as supervisor in charge of training new employees that the owner would be hiring from afar. So off went the owner, and the young supervisor did his best. By no means did he know the whole of his employer's mind, but he knew enough to impart to the new hires what was needed to be a good worker and to please the owner. All the while, the supervisor kept up correspondence with his older mentor, learning more and more about the owner's mind. The newer hires learned more and more about what their employer wanted and had much better understandings of the ways of the company than the first people the supervisor had trained, as the owner revealed to him more of the nuances of the business.
In time, the owner sent his own CEO to the company to manage the company. Now the supervisor would have a crystal clear understanding of the business and his employer's mind because the owner's personal assistant was instructing him personally. As ever, the supervisor's role was now to train the employees to do the work the manager had for them, but now the supervisor could advise the employees as how to best approach the manager and how to understand what he wanted, and chiefly to lead them to get to know the manager personally as well as the supervisor knew him.
Eventually, the manager was given back his title of Chief Executive Officer and was called away, but before leaving he left his personal phone number with the supervisor. The supervisor came to be seen as something of a liason between the new manager and the other employees. In fact, some people got accustomed to avoiding the manager in favor of their old friend the supervisor. The trustworthy supervisor was sufficiently acquainted with his manager and boss so that those employees did good work. And when the supervisor conveyed some limited understanding of a peripheral issue, those employees were more likely to try to make what the supervisor said into company policy than to just call up or set up a meeting with the manager.
Now, in the absence of both the manager (CEO) and the owner, the devotion of those certain employees to the supervisor was such that they even took everything he said about non-work-related issues as the absolute truth. For instance, the town in which the business was located was founded by the owner through his personal assistant many years before any of the rest of them were born. The supervisor never asked and was never told how the town was founded - only how the business was established. Nevertheless, he had his own fabulous ideas as to how the owner had gone about founding the town, which his devotees held on to as the absolute truth.
The employees who recognized the supervisor's limits decided to find out how the town was founded. As they walked around the streets, they noticed elaborate, prosy signs written in a language they couldn't understand. After much travail, which included spending many after-work hours and weekends of study and rubbing shoulders with employees of the town's other company, they slowly began to understand the signs, which turned out to be historical commemorations indicating the particulars of the town's establishment. The parts they could read for certain contradicted the supervisor's version.
Oh the arguments that broke out between the majority of employees who read the signs and the minority who believed the supervisor's speculation! This brought tension in the company, especially when non-employee residents of the town began to read the op-ed's and articles written by the latter group in the newspaper. The non-employees knew from their understanding of the ancient language that the town was not founded as the supervisor told it, and employees who ignored the signs made the company look like it was populated by people who were not only ignorant, but militantly ignorant! They began to try to get people to not apply to the company, and to encourage people already in the application process to forsake their ambitions there. The vocal minority was incensed that employees were fraternizing with the non-employees, regardless of the fact that both groups had a stated goal of bringing more non-employees to work at the company.
Many years later, when all the company employees were invited to the owner's mansion to celebrate their many years of hard work and the company's success, the owner told them all of how he and his CEO had founded the town, and his version confirmed what was read in the historical commemorations. The group who believed the supervisor fell uncomfortably silent. When the owner asked them why they were so quiet, one of them respectfully asked, "Sir, why would you have installed as supervisor someone who would not speak the absolute truth of all things?" The owner replied, "The supervisor was set up as a guide for matters of company policy; it was for those matters that I hired you, and for which you are guests at my table, because he is a good and faithful employee." Then another one spoke up and said, "But why did you not leave a witness of all your works?" The owner replied, "But I did. Did you not read the signs I left you throughout the town?"
In time, the owner sent his own CEO to the company to manage the company. Now the supervisor would have a crystal clear understanding of the business and his employer's mind because the owner's personal assistant was instructing him personally. As ever, the supervisor's role was now to train the employees to do the work the manager had for them, but now the supervisor could advise the employees as how to best approach the manager and how to understand what he wanted, and chiefly to lead them to get to know the manager personally as well as the supervisor knew him.
Eventually, the manager was given back his title of Chief Executive Officer and was called away, but before leaving he left his personal phone number with the supervisor. The supervisor came to be seen as something of a liason between the new manager and the other employees. In fact, some people got accustomed to avoiding the manager in favor of their old friend the supervisor. The trustworthy supervisor was sufficiently acquainted with his manager and boss so that those employees did good work. And when the supervisor conveyed some limited understanding of a peripheral issue, those employees were more likely to try to make what the supervisor said into company policy than to just call up or set up a meeting with the manager.
Now, in the absence of both the manager (CEO) and the owner, the devotion of those certain employees to the supervisor was such that they even took everything he said about non-work-related issues as the absolute truth. For instance, the town in which the business was located was founded by the owner through his personal assistant many years before any of the rest of them were born. The supervisor never asked and was never told how the town was founded - only how the business was established. Nevertheless, he had his own fabulous ideas as to how the owner had gone about founding the town, which his devotees held on to as the absolute truth.
The employees who recognized the supervisor's limits decided to find out how the town was founded. As they walked around the streets, they noticed elaborate, prosy signs written in a language they couldn't understand. After much travail, which included spending many after-work hours and weekends of study and rubbing shoulders with employees of the town's other company, they slowly began to understand the signs, which turned out to be historical commemorations indicating the particulars of the town's establishment. The parts they could read for certain contradicted the supervisor's version.
Oh the arguments that broke out between the majority of employees who read the signs and the minority who believed the supervisor's speculation! This brought tension in the company, especially when non-employee residents of the town began to read the op-ed's and articles written by the latter group in the newspaper. The non-employees knew from their understanding of the ancient language that the town was not founded as the supervisor told it, and employees who ignored the signs made the company look like it was populated by people who were not only ignorant, but militantly ignorant! They began to try to get people to not apply to the company, and to encourage people already in the application process to forsake their ambitions there. The vocal minority was incensed that employees were fraternizing with the non-employees, regardless of the fact that both groups had a stated goal of bringing more non-employees to work at the company.
Many years later, when all the company employees were invited to the owner's mansion to celebrate their many years of hard work and the company's success, the owner told them all of how he and his CEO had founded the town, and his version confirmed what was read in the historical commemorations. The group who believed the supervisor fell uncomfortably silent. When the owner asked them why they were so quiet, one of them respectfully asked, "Sir, why would you have installed as supervisor someone who would not speak the absolute truth of all things?" The owner replied, "The supervisor was set up as a guide for matters of company policy; it was for those matters that I hired you, and for which you are guests at my table, because he is a good and faithful employee." Then another one spoke up and said, "But why did you not leave a witness of all your works?" The owner replied, "But I did. Did you not read the signs I left you throughout the town?"
