
2006 Soap Box Archives
The
Boss 04/14/06
I have
been blessed with being able to keep twenty or so people steadily
and gainfully employed for over thirty years. We have a 401k
plan and health insurance for our employees. God has truly blessed
me with employees that I not only like, but love and consider
members of my extended family.
I have
not accomplished this by myself, far from it. I have had the
help of some of the most dedicated and hard working people I
know of. They take incredible care of my business and incredible
care of me.
The
jobs that many of my people do are way beyond my field of expertise
and comprehension and it is my method just to stay out of the
way and let them do their thing. If they need my advice or input
theyll let me know, otherwise atonomy is by far the best
policy.
You
find capable people you trust and enjoy being around, turn certain
responsibilities over to them and let them do it their way while
I devote my time and energy to doing the things that Im
best at.
My attitude
is that they cant do my job and I cant do theirs,
thereby there are absolutely no unimportant people in our outfit.
Everybodys individual job is important to the success
of the whole.
While
I do not and cannot take the responsibility for the success
and longevity of The CDB, I do take responsibility for the well
being of my employees and whatever direction we take musically
and business wise. Because the final decisions on all hairy
issues belong to me. Theyre my responsibility. Sometimes
its not easy but its called paying the cost to be
the boss.
Somebody
has got to have the final word, to make the final decision,
to say the buck stops here and whatever happens from here on
out is my responsibility no matter how it comes out.
Its
a way of doing business that has worked for a long time and
while we may not be considered to be a microcosm of how
companies should be run, I think that there are valuable lessons
to be learned from it.
Entrenched
bureaucracies become top heavy, lazy and inefficient. Look at
the recent failings of F.E.M.A. In my admittedly unasked opinion,
F.E.M.A. needs to put into the hands of a strong minded person
who can compartmentalize it under the command of people he can
trust who are willing and capable to get the job done and get
rid of all the dead weight it is carrying. If youre not
going to help pull the cart, get out of the way.
Also
the government regulations and federal statutes F.E.M.A. operates
under should be simplified. You dont need documents the
size of a Sears & Roebuck catalog to tell you when people
need help.
And
you dont need Rhodes scholars to administer that help.
You need people with practical horse sense who can go among
the hurting and see what they need, send the order back up the
line and stay with it until the needed help arrives.
Evidently
its not even clear when state and local responsibility
drops off and federal responsibility starts. This desperately
needs to be clarified and there should be an on the scene administrator
with a checkbook and a crew of able people to decide whats
what.
You
cant sit in an office in Washington and make decisions
when you should be out in a rowboat seeing disasters firsthand
and talking to the affected people.
In other
words, take it to the people. Take it to the streets.
Dealing
with bureaucracies is like walking in molasses.
If I had to venture a guess about what happened during the hurricanes
on the Gulf Coast I would say that the bureaucracies would bear
a lot of the blame.
You
just cant get things done by committee. Somebodys
got to be the boss.
Pray
for our troops
What
do you think?
God
Bless America
Charlie
Daniels
April 14, 2006
