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David R's avatar

Dear Colonel Bill, I was in complete agreement with your article and thought the readers may like to hear another example from after I left the military , in the same vein. I took over as President of a manufacturing company in Canada after we acquired it, and culturally it was very different from a military unit.

But it seemed to me good leadership practice that making a statement of my and 'our ethos' was a pretty fundamental first step, so I laid down 4 rules: treat everyone as you would want to be treat, don't come to work if you are drunk or under the influence fro safety reasons, always be honest (no bullshit!) even if it was an uncomfortable statement and do not steal from the company or your colleagues. I stated that their would be zero tolerance on these principles, for the good of all.

After a couple of years there was only 1 instance of theft, and we fired the guy, even though it was a small item, and then came the test case. The son in law of one of my very best supervisors was caught smoking weed late on the night shift.

I fired him.

About 6 months later he came to see me at the factory and thanked me personally , the shock had made him confront a larger drug problem, and had apparently also saved his marriage and family. A year after that we rehired him, and he became an exemplary employee.

Set standards, but be human, and the collective good outweighs the individual.

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