Money and Power

What dictates decisions in your work organizations?
Money and Power are on the top of the list.
Profitability is on the list but individual money and Power is the main struggles in a work organization. Generations ago there were more mom and pop buisneses so the " power" chart was really non existent but today everything is chain stores and huge conglomerates and the top of the organization chart fight for more more power and more money. Because most of the people with the titles making the " big money " are mostly worried about their own paycheck they start to eat their own, another words the top brass start the little clicks amongst themselves to survive, as in one of John Lennon's lines in his song - A Working Class. here- " first you need to learn to smile as you kill".
When I started at Arpin in 1985 I had left Honeywell, Honeywell treated me very good but they were huge, their main office was in Minneapolis and I worked in East Providence RI and was number 46892 ( I ado not remember my exact employee #) and as a young man just starting a family I wanted to work for a company that knew ME and not just be " a number " because at the end of the day if decisions were going to be made on who to keep or promote I wanted the owner to know ME and my work ethic.
It was the correct decision, Paul Arpin and David Arpin got to know me and respected my work and I stayed there for 35 years and helped it grow from a 7 million dollar buisness to over a 200 million dollar buisness. Through the years of growth I watched as it grow and it went from no HR, no titiles other than Paul, David and Peter , no committees, to dozens of titles and structures and committees and in that change is inevitable. It was good because I was able to witness first hand how buisness can change and sometimes bigger is not always better.
As more titles came to be the more people rose to power that may not have had Paul and David's goals or philosophies and so started the fight not for the main goal but for individual power and money.
It did not happen overnight but I witnessed first hand and observed how when people are put in power positions that only start to worry about their own buisness life and lose sight of the people that actually do the work , the hard work every day.
Because we all now live in the world of huge conglomerates and businesses this is a way of life for many, our hope is that the people at the top of organization chart earn their spot and appreciate not what only got them there but who really does the heavy lifting every day.

This goes for your government too.



(It is important to note that this blog piece is not directed toward anyone or any particular buisness, in all of my jobs and places I worked I met and worked with many many very fine individuals and learned from them along the way. I am only writing my observations along the way.)