{"id":251,"date":"2010-02-14T20:54:21","date_gmt":"2010-02-15T03:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.constructonomics.com\/blog\/?p=251"},"modified":"2010-03-25T07:16:42","modified_gmt":"2010-03-25T14:16:42","slug":"fire-your-relatives-scare-your-employees-and-stop-whining-so-says-george-cloutier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/14\/fire-your-relatives-scare-your-employees-and-stop-whining-so-says-george-cloutier\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire Your Relatives. Scare Your Employees. And Stop Whining – So Says George Cloutier"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever heard of George Cloutier?\u00a0 Me neither, until\u00a0 I ran across an article<\/a> on the New York Times website today whe\"coutier\"re an interview was published with the author of, “Profits Aren’t Everything, They’re the Only Thing” and the founder of American Management Services.\u00a0 After reading the article, I wanted to ask Mr. Cloutier, if profits are everything, where does social responsibility, worker well-being, and work-life balance fit into the mix?\u00a0 Or do they?<\/p>\n

Mr. Cloutier advises to put profits above all, shock your laggard employees, and always pay yourself first.\u00a0 He claims to be challenging conventional wisdom about how companies should operate, but from what I’ve gathered his strategy employs the kind of mentality that got us into this economic mess, and is nothing but conventional.<\/p>\n

One of Cloutier’s suggestions is to, instead of paying vendors on time, pay them late to increase cash flow.\u00a0 Wherever did he come up with this idea? Honestly, this is the oldest trick in the book and if a company isn’t doing it, it’s because they don’t want to screw over their vendors and damage a relationship.<\/p>\n

Anyway, Here are a few excerpts from the article.<\/p>\n

Q.<\/span> You tell business owners to forget about being likable. Is there something wrong with employees liking you<\/span>?<\/p>\n

A.<\/span> You have to treat your people with respect. If they have a personal problem, you have to help them through it. You have to follow the law. But we also need to get things done as asked. The abandonment of that principle is a large factor in the failure of small businesses to achieve real profitability.<\/p>\n

Q.<\/span> What\u2019s your view of fear as a management tool<\/span>?<\/p>\n

A.<\/span> Fear is the best motivator.<\/p>\n

Q.<\/span> You say no owner should be satisfied with his business. What dissatisfies you about yours?<\/span><\/p>\n

A.<\/span> I feel that I should triple the size of the business over the next 10 years because I\u2019m getting old. I\u2019m a little dissatisfied we haven\u2019t done that. I semi-retired for about five years and that was probably something I won\u2019t do again. They\u2019re going to carry me out of here in my shoes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I really hate to see this behavior encouraged by a Harvard educated management consultant like Mr. Cloutier who may hold significant credibility in professional circles.\u00a0 For him to say that fear is a great motivator is absurd.\u00a0 Why doesn’t he just throw guilt and shame in there to pull a trifecta of manipulative and cowardly management methods.\u00a0 But was he successful?\u00a0 Yes, he started a company that grew to 150 employees.\u00a0 But at what price?<\/p>\n

Not everything that Mr. Cloutier said made me cringe.\u00a0 I thought he made some good points about sound financial management and not getting yourself too far into a hole.\u00a0 However, his fist-pounding tyrant-like style is what we are trying to move away from and just increases anxiety among employees.\u00a0 There is one thing of which I am nearly certain, anxiety leads to unhealthy, and unhappy lives.\u00a0 However, fear will drive short term behavior and if you want to see short term result you can certainly use it to get some reaction.<\/p>\n

I prefer a method that focuses on long-term sustainability and while this may not be as gratifying in the short term, it can produce a healthy, and yes, profitable organization.\u00a0 Does this allow for poor financial mismanagement?\u00a0 Absolutely not, but it does not require fist-pounding, and noose tightening to generate results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever heard of George Cloutier?\u00a0 Me neither, until\u00a0 I ran across an article<\/a> on the New York Times website today where an interview was published with the author of, “Profits Aren’t Everything, They’re the Only Thing” and the founder of American Management Services.\u00a0 After reading the article, I wanted to ask Mr. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,4,55,5,56,57],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-construction-blog","tag-construction-economics","tag-george-cloutier","tag-john-poole","tag-management","tag-management-in-construction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":255,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions\/255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}