The Servant

by James C Hunter

  “No question that the military model was effective in winning wars,” the teacher agreed, nodding. “I am free and thankful for that freedom as I stand here today. But I wonder, like the little abused girl I spoke of earlier, if we have inappropriately transferred a perfectly good model when defending homelands and babies into a world where the model will not be as effective. Does this model serve us well today or is there a better way?”

  “You know,” Lee began, “as I look at the model on your flip chart, I am struck that we have the customer in the same place as the enemy. You don’t really believe that organizations view the customer as the enemy, do you?”

  “I would certainly hope not, at least not consciously,” Kim replied. “But, as I look at this top-down style of management, I am concerned about the messages that are being sent to the organization.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I queried.

  “Everyone in the organization is looking upward, toward the boss and away from the customer,” came her quick reply.

  “Beautiful observation, Kim!” Simeon exclaimed. “And that is exactly what happens with a top-down mentality or paradigm. If I were to go into your organizations and ask your employees—associates or whatever you call them—Who are you trying to please, or Who is it that you serve, what do you think the response of the vast majority of the people would be?”

  I jumped on that one. “I’d like to think they would say ‘the customer’ but I’m afraid they would say ‘the boss.’ Yes, in fact I’m quite sure that the employees in my plant would say something like, ‘I’m here to make sure the boss is happy. As long as the boss is happy, life is good.’ Sad, but most likely true.”

  “That’s honest, John,” the teacher acknowledged. “My experience has been the same. The people in many organizations today are looking up the food chain, so to speak, and worrying about keeping the boss happy. And while everyone is focusing on keeping the boss happy, who’s focusing on keeping the customer happy?”

  The principal looked a bit troubled as she slowly said, “How ironic and sad. Maybe the pyramid is upside down. Maybe the customer needs to be at the top. Doesn’t that make more sense?”

  “It sure does make sense, Theresa,” the preacher replied, “because if the customer is not being served and kept happy, we’re not going to have much to talk about at the next seminar because we’ll soon be out of business.”

  The teacher walked over to the flip chart, saying, “Following through with what Theresa said, suppose that our top-down paradigm is upside down. Suppose a perfectly good model for one place and time is not appropriate for today. What if, as Theresa suggested, we invert the triangle and place the customer at the top. And as we said earlier, the closest one to the customer would be the associates or employees, supported by the front-line supervisor, and then all the rest. The new model might look something like this.”

  Simeon backed away from the flip chart.

  “I think you’re living in la-la land, Simeon,” the sergeant insisted. “You’re saying the employees would be at the top running the place. I mean, all this warm and fuzzy talk is fun in theory—but forget it in the real world.”

  “Please bear with me here for another minute or two, Greg,” Simeon said. “Let’s just imagine an organization where the focus was serving the customer on top. Imagine, as the upside-down pyramid depicts, an organization where the front-line employees are truly serving the customers and ensuring that their legitimate needs are being met. And just suppose the front-line supervisors began seeing their employees as their customers and set about the task of identifying and meeting their needs. And so on down the pyramid. That would require each manager to take on a new mind-set, a new paradigm, and recognize that the role of the leader is not to rule and lord it over the next layer down. Rather, the role of the leader is to serve. What an interesting paradox. What if we had it upside down all along? Perhaps we lead best by serving.”

  The nurse interjected, “I always tell my department supervisors that their job is to remove all the obstacles, all the roadblocks in their people’s way in getting the patients served. I tell them to picture themselves as giant pavement levelers removing all the speed bumps along the way for their people. I guess to put it in your words, Simeon, removing the obstacles would be serving the people.”

  “That’s right,” the preacher added. “Unfortunately, too many managers spend their careers getting in the way instead of getting the obstacles out of the way. In my previous life we used to call supervisors who spent their days getting in the way ‘seagull managers.’ A seagull manager is one who periodically flies into the area, makes a lot of noise, dumps on people, maybe eats their lunch, and flies away. I think we’ve all known a few managers like that in our time.”

  “My boss takes it a step further,” the nurse added again. “She tells me that management is all overhead. She says that when we as managers stopped serving coffee on the airplanes, cleaning out the bedpans, teaching the kids in school, or driving the fork lift, we have ceased adding value to the product or service and have become overhead.”

  “I’m not sure if it’s worse to be called ‘overhead’ or a ‘seagull manager,’” the teacher responded, chuckling. “It is a shame that so many leaders spend their time pondering their rights as leaders instead of their awesome responsibilities as leaders.”

  “Even in negotiating a union contract,” I said slowly, “the company and the union often spend countless hours fighting over the ‘Management Rights’ section of the contract. I once heard of a union official at one of our sister companies who yelled back over the conference table, ‘How about if I give you some lefts to go along with them rights!’”

  “It’s time for noon chapel,” Simeon said, smiling. “In summary then, a leader is someone who identifies and meets the legitimate needs of their people, removes all the barriers, so they can serve the customer. Again, to lead you must serve.”

  “Earth to Simeon, earth to Simeon!” the sergeant chanted under his breath on the way out the door.

  AFTER LUNCH, I decided to go for a brief stroll along the beach before the afternoon session. Greg asked if he could join me and I lied politely, “That would be great.” The sergeant was about the last person on earth that I wanted to go for a stroll with.

  We walked a couple of minutes in silence before he asked, “What do you think of all this power versus authority and serving the people stuff?”

  “Not sure yet, but I’m still listening,” I replied.

  “I have a hard time believing that it could really work this way in the real world. It’s Greek to me.”

  “You and me both, Greg,” I said, just to be agreeable.

  But for the second time in less than five minutes I was lying to Greg. The teacher’s words were not some foreign language to me. I recognized truth when I heard it.

  ALL WERE PRESENT and curiously quiet when the clock chimed twice to begin our afternoon session.

  Simeon didn’t get the first word out when the sergeant spoke up. “I know you were supposed to be a good leader years ago and I respect that, Simeon. But I can’t believe you accomplished what you did by telling supervisors to do whatever the employees want! If I tried to manage, excuse me, lead people that way, I would have open anarchy. In a perfect world you may be right, but doing what people want will never work in this world, big guy.”

  “I’m sorry, Greg,” the teacher began, “I guess I have not made it very clear about what it means to be the servant. I said that leaders should identify and meet the needs of their people, serve them. I did not say that they should identify and meet the wants of their people, be slaves to them. Slaves do what others want, servants do what others need. There is a world of difference between meeting wants and meeting needs.”

  “And how would you define the difference?” Greg asked, a bit more calmly.

  Simeon didn’t miss a beat. “As a parent, for example, if I were to allow my children to do whatever they want, how many of you
would want to spend time at my home? Not too many of you, I suspect, because the kids would be running the place, we’d have ‘anarchy,’ as you put it. By giving in to what they want, I am certainly not giving them what they need. Children and adults need an environment with boundaries, a place where standards are set and people are held accountable. They may not want boundaries and accountability but they need boundaries and accountability. We don’t do anybody any favors by running undisciplined homes or departments. The leader should never settle for mediocrity or second best—people have a need to be pushed to be the best they can be. It may not be what they want, but the leader should always be more concerned with needs than with wants.”

  To my surprise I felt moved to speak so I added, “The employees working in our plant all want to make twenty dollars an hour. Now if we were to pay them twenty dollars an hour we would probably be out of business in a matter of a few months because our competition could make the glass much cheaper. So in the end, we may have done what the employees wanted, but we sure didn’t do what the employees needed, which is providing stable, long-term employment.”

  The sergeant added, “Yeah, think about how politicians make their policy decisions based on the most recent Gallup poll. I guess they’re giving people what they want, but I wonder if it’s what they need.”

  “But how do you clearly differentiate between needs and wants?” the nurse asked.

  “A want,” the teacher explained, “is simply a wish or desire without any regard for the physical or psychological consequences. A need, on the other hand, is a legitimate physical or psychological requirement for the well-being of a human being.”

  “Doesn’t that get a bit tricky?” Kim questioned. “After all, people are different and so it follows naturally that they would have different needs. Although I suspect that there are certain needs, like being treated with respect, that are universal.”

  “Great point, Kim,” I jumped in. “My oldest, John Jr., was a strong-willed child while my daughter, Sarah, was the compliant one. They certainly have different needs and it has required different parenting styles to handle those individual needs. The same is true where I work. A new employee certainly has a different set of needs than a twenty-year employee who knows his or her job better than I could ever dream of knowing it. Different people do have different needs, so I guess the leader needs to be flexible.”

  The teacher pressed on. “If the role of the leader is to identify and meet the legitimate needs of the people, then we should be constantly asking ourselves, What are the needs of the people I lead? I would challenge you to make a list of the needs your people have, in your home, in church, in school, wherever you lead. And if you get stuck on what the people need, then just ask yourself, What needs do I have? That should get you going again.”

  Greg said, “Well, Chucky driving the fork lift at work needs a good-running machine, proper tools, training, materials, fair pay, and a safe work environment. That should make him happy.”

  Simeon replied, “That’s a very good start, Greg—it pretty well covers his physical needs. But remember, Chucky also has psychological needs that must be met. What might those needs be?”

  The nurse—the brightest of the retreat participants, I thought—rose and walked over to the flip chart and drew yet another pyramid.

  She began, “I can’t believe I’m doing this but I’ll do what Simeon asked, which is to speak when I feel moved to speak.”

  “Teacher’s pet!” I yelled at Kim.

  “Stop it, John! This is hard for me,” she shot back with a little smile. “Psych 101 in college taught us about Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of human needs. I think there were five levels of needs with the lowest level being food, water, and shelter, the second tier being safety and security needs, and so on.”

  The nurse backed away from the flip chart before resuming. “As I recall, the lower-level needs must first be met before the higher-level needs become motivators. So on the lowest tier, I suppose paying a fair wage and benefit would sufficiently meet the food, water, and shelter needs. The second-tier needs would include safety and security needs, which at work could mean a safe work environment along with providing boundaries and setting the standards as Simeon said earlier. This in turn provides consistency and predictability—which, as I recall Maslow saying, was crucial to meeting safety and security needs. Maslow was not at all a supporter of permissive parenting.”

  “Go on, Kim!” Theresa encouraged. “You’re really on a roll!”

  Kim broke into a big grin as she continued, her nervousness fading. “Anyway, once those needs are met, the belonging and love needs become motivators. As I recall, that includes the need to be a part of a healthy group with accepting and healthy relationships. Once those needs are met, the motivator becomes self-esteem, which includes the need to be valued, treated with respect, appreciated, encouraged, to receive recognition, rewards, and so on.”

  “Yeah, make sure you get in the warm and fuzzy stuff,” the sergeant teased.

  “Moving right along,” the nurse continued, smiling. “Once these needs are met, the need moves to self-actualization, which many have struggled trying to define. What I got out of it was that to self-actualize is to become the best you can be or are capable of becoming. Not everyone can be president of the company, All-American, or valedictorian. But everyone can be the best employee, player, or student possible. And if I’m understanding Simeon correctly, the leader should push and encourage people to become the best they are capable of becoming. I guess Chucky on the fork lift may never be president of the company, but we can encourage and push him to be the best fork lift driver he can be.”

  “Be all that you can be, now that sounds familiar, doesn’t it, Greggy boy?” the preacher snickered. “Isn’t that the Army theme song in those commercials that drive us all nuts? I think we should all sing it for Greg.”

  As we adjourned for the day, we marched out the door singing the Army jingle at the top of our lungs.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Model

  Anyone wanting to be the leader must

  first be the servant. If you want to lead you must serve.

  —JESUS CHRIST

  THE TEACHER WAS SITTING and waiting when I arrived at the chapel a few minutes after five Tuesday morning.

  “Good morning, John,” he cheerfully greeted me.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I responded, still a little groggy. “You look bright and chipper. What time do you usually get up in the morning?”

  “Quarter to four, except for Sunday mornings. That gives me some time to get centered before the first service.”

  “That’s too early for me,” I said, shaking my head.

  “So tell me, John, what have you been learning?”

  “I don’t know, Simeon. I find myself getting really irritated with Greg and it’s hard for me to concentrate. It seems like he challenges everything. I guess it must be his Army training or something. Why don’t you put him in his place or just ask him to leave instead of letting him disrupt everything?”

  “I pray for people just like Greg to be in my classes.”

  “You actually want guys like that in your class?” I asked incredulously.

  “You bet I do. My first mentor in business taught me a hard lesson about the importance of contrary opinion. As a young vice president at a sheet metal manufacturing company, I tended to be an extreme Theory Y, let’s-hold-hands-and-have-fun kind of leader. A couple of other vice presidents, who I remember vividly to this day, Jay and Kenny, were two extreme Theory X types who believed that people were lazy, dishonest, and needed to be prodded with sticks to get them to work.”

  “Kind of like Greg?”

  “I have no idea what Greg believes, John, but I do know that things are not always as they appear. We should be careful before making quick judgments. In addition, Greg is not here to defend himself, and I try very hard not to talk negatively about those who are not present.”

  “
Probably a good personal policy to have,” I nodded.

  “I’ve tried to live, many times unsuccessfully, with the philosophy that we should never treat people differently from the way we would want to be treated. I don’t think we would want people talking about us behind our backs, would we, John?”

  “Good point, Simeon.”

  “Back to Jay and Kenny. I would go into our executive meetings with the other VPs and have tremendous conflict whenever employee issues were discussed. Those two guys were always pushing for tougher policies and procedures and I was always pushing for a more democratic and open style of management. I always believed Jay and Kenny would ruin the company with their ‘way of the dinosaur’ attitudes. At the same time Jay and Kenny always believed that I was a closet pinkocommie who wanted to give away the company. My boss, Bill—the president of the company and a personal friend—would patiently referee these battles, some of them fierce, sometimes siding with them, sometimes with me.”

  “Tough spot for him to be in,” I suggested.

  “Not for Bill,” he quickly replied. “Bill always had clear boundaries, and especially when it came to the needs of the business. After a particularly heated meeting one day, I pulled Bill aside and said, ‘Why don’t you just fire those two idiots so that we can start having some civil and upbeat meetings?’ I will remember his response to my dying day.”

  “He agreed to fire them?”

  “On the contrary, John. He told me that firing them would be the worst thing we could ever do to the company. Of course I asked him why. He looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘Because, Len, if you had it your way, you would give the company away. Those guys help you keep your balance.’ I was so mad at Bill I didn’t talk to him for a week!”