Hey Jim, first I wanted to say a general 'thanks' for your Nip Impressions articles. I look forward to it each week and regularly reference it, specifically your points about drones I think are spot-on - I have forwarded a number of your articles to co-workers in the safety field.
I was the one who sent the comment 2 weeks ago about combining integrity with not-too-much rule following into the perfect employee. Yes, it was fun to see it in print. I thought your response was quite good (although I had to think on it a little bit) and I applaud you for 'calling yourself out' on the snow incident - I agree your real problem there was not addressing the culprit directly (you could also add that you created an unsafe situation). But you didn't let 'rules' of proper behavior prevent you from responding to a threat.
Which brings me to the real reason I wrote today. After sending you that comment (but before reading your response) I discussed it with my 17-year old daughter, who is pretty clear-headed when it comes to these kinds of things. We agreed that the key is not to let arbitrary rules prevent you from doing the right thing, or getting things done. Your red light example is a decent one. We were more thinking about those people that would say 'I know your solution would work, but it conflicts with the way we normally do things so I won't do it.' That kind of rule following over time will lead to a dependency on rules to support your tendency to laziness. Integrity, on the other hand (in a similar situation) would say 'I know we have a rule that says we aren't supposed to do this, but it doesn't make good sense and it is standing in the way of getting things done. I am going to push through and a) work to have the rule fixed, and/or b) get the approval to bypass this arbitrary rule.'
Thanks for the clarity on what can be a gray area for me. Also thanks for your comments on cancer. My dearest brother-in-law was diagnosed with brain cancer about 4 years ago, and passed away 2 years ago. I'll never forget the whole process and am thankful for the learnings that hopefully I will not have to use in my family's future.
James Heidt Black Belt Project Manager Lean Six Sigma AkzoNobel Functional Chemicals LLC.
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