HOW TO TRANSFORM ZOMBIES INTO THINKING PARTICIPANTS

I started my professional life in a steel mill in Belgium.  The year was 1963.

I had come out of a deadly kidney disease, lost a kidney, and was saved by a successful operation at the age of 20. Through my father I received an offer to become assistant managing director of a small Belgian steel mill two hours after coming out of narcosis. My answer to my father was: "Do what you think best".

Three months afterwards I was introduced to the management by the old patrician owner, in French of course, a language I barely knew as I speak Flemish. In those days every major company in Belgium was in the hands of French-speaking "aristocrats" who lorded it over their Flemish-speaking "slaves".

The chief production engineer, a Flemish engineer, took me aside and asked me in no uncertain terms "what the f…" I thought I was doing?

He told me further that the company just came out of a 2-year strike, yes sir, and that the workforce had given in by lack of money. If I thought this company was going to survive I was nuts. And welcome to you too.

It was clear to me that I had been hired to be the scapegoat as a young inexperienced director for the future demise of the company, for I soon became Managing Director with full powers.

The first months I left the administration and sales department to the old hands and spent all my time in the factory with the engineers and workers. The attitude of the workers was one of absolute indifference.

I learned to know the union bosses quite closely and asked everybody to talk to me about their jobs. The whole management was puzzled that I totally ignored the head office and was dressed in blue cover-alls most of the time. My hands were mostly greased and dirty.  The factory was decrepit and had not seen a new machine since 30 years.  The old owner was intrigued and came looking for me regularly on the shop floor, just to try to figure me out.

I learned one more thing, notwithstanding the decrepit state of the factory, the owner was tremendously rich and because of that the factory had a triple AAA credit rating.

In my contract I insisted to be allowed to follow economics courses at a nearby university.  Then after about four months I informed the owner that I would travel all over the world to learn the trade. He agreed immediately because the further I went away the more he liked it.

He was planning to close the factory within about two years, enough time to be able to claim that I was responsible for the disaster, which he couldn't claim too soon after hiring me.

I went to the centers of the world's steel industry and the manufacturers of new machinery.

I had learned from the workers, not from the engineers, what the problems were of their machinery and work schedule.

I went to every machinery builder and had sessions with their design engineers, offering them support for new development. Mind you this is 1963. New development support was unheard of in the classic industry.

The machinery engineers became interested and showed me their ideas. I bought prototypes for about US$3 million, payable after testing in our factory. Further developments payable 50/50 between the construction company and my company as research support.

After six months the first trucks started arriving with new machinery and the old chap and his cronies became apoplectic. I couldn't and I shouldn't etc. etc. My answer was that they could always send the machinery back but that I would support the claim for payment by the manufacturer of the machinery.

My behavior was so contradictory to my previous meek attitude that for some reason they caved in and I had my "toys" as they said.

That started a period of very hard work to get all those machines working properly, as they were all prototypes with fancy electronics (1963!) and electromagnetic steering and controls.

My main problems were the workers and mechanics. They were all badly educated stubborn anti-capitalist unionists. I hired a mechanical engineer with a university degree, a very strong man with whom I made a secret deal that he would start every prototype until satisfactory and until I had the production I wanted out of it.

His salary was more, as a worker, than what he would earn in a management job. He did it also out of sport and as a challenge. Of course he would learn more practically than in any management job.

Within one year every new machine performed above expectation.

The workers had less work for more production on those new machines and the fact that my engineer had proven that this production was possible and normal stopped all discussion about possible and/or impossible.

The next step was the salary on the new machinery. I kept the old salary as base and installed a geometric rise for high productivity. This brought home the fact that the workers participated in the profit of the factory and in the life of the factory.

In five years time my production average was five times the world's average – not 5% but 500% of the average productivity in the world. Every machine was new and state of the art and the workers were the best paid in their profession.

Every mechanic, electrician, carpenter and other craftsman and every worker would come to me whenever they saw me to give me tips how to improve machinery and productivity.

Instead of zombies I had partners.

They advised me on long production runs, flexible workstations, multi-machinery control, quality control etc. etc. There was a total exchange of ideas with uneducated workers who became specialists by interest and natural elimination of bad behaviour and bad quality.  

The main body of workers controlled the general production behaviour and when bad behavior occurred, rarely, they took care of it themselves, efficiently.

This was a work force of 1500 people. The running investments were dozens of millions.

I left the company on a dispute of shares. The old chap became too old and had no sons. He "trained" a no good playboy cousin as successor and I told the old owner that this man would run the company into the ground, and that I wanted a minority share to block the new owner.  The old man refused because I didn't have his name.

I left after seven marvellous years and the old chap died soon afterwards. The company "lived" another 10 years until the new man had demolished it.  The unions came to me with the offer to restart it again but meanwhile I had passed to other activities.

So that's the story of how I had the pleasure of developing a bunch of zombies into participating human beings and partners.

Since then I have been able to replicate this transformation of  zombies into thinking participants in different parts of the world.  The basic requirement is human contact beyond all barriers and education.

Given that, the possibility of such transformation is universal, for human beings are human beings.  The limiting factor is culture.  The transformation is far easier in some cultures, far harder in others.

I have found it to be the most difficult and frustrating with Arabs.  Close to the edge of impossibility.

Africans are farther away from that edge, but it still takes a lot of patience and finesse – which is why a transformation with them is so satisfying.

On the Asian scale, I have found the best to be Koreans, then Chinese, then Japanese.

And Americans?  Yes, no problem, but with a politically incorrect requirement.  It's been my experience that there must be a Caucasian core to the workforce.

All of this has led me to conclude that helping to transform zombies into thinking humans can be the most significant happening in one's life. 

"Mercury Traveler" is a familiar participant in the TTP User Forum, whose insightful observations are highly appreciated by many of his fellow TTP'ers.