82Marine89
05-18-2008, 02:07 PM
This article is in one of my trade magazines and I thought it was a good read so I wanted to share it with all of you and get some feedback.
How much freedom do you want to give your employees? Do you want to be a dictator, or do you want to have a democracy? It was a question in Dale Micetic’s mind when he was starting out in the landscape business. He knew he didn’t want to be a dictator. So, when he started his first company as a college student in 1974 in Phoenix, Ariz., he devised some methods that allowed employees to feel empowered and an integral part of the company.
Those methods involved some simple pay incentives, but also used company picnics and community service projects to make employees feel that they were part of a family. The result wasn’t a democracy so much as a meritocracy, but it wasn’t a dictatorship. It brought Terrain Systems, Inc. great success and profit.
The story continues now even though Micetic has sold his business. Working for a large, international company, he continues to push for ways to make employees feel significant and valued.
“The hierarchical kind of management just doesn’t seem to work,” says Micetic, who is now president of ISS Grounds Control, Inc., a subsidiary of the Danish company ISS A/S. He sold Terrain Systems in 2002 to a Texas landscape company, Sanitors, Inc., which sold to the Danish company in 2007. He’s stayed through both changeovers. Micetic guides Grounds Control and finds new acquisitions for the umbrella company, and he still uses the principles of employee management from his early years.
Click for the rest of the article... (http://www.lcmmagazine.com/article.php?id=1368)
How much freedom do you want to give your employees? Do you want to be a dictator, or do you want to have a democracy? It was a question in Dale Micetic’s mind when he was starting out in the landscape business. He knew he didn’t want to be a dictator. So, when he started his first company as a college student in 1974 in Phoenix, Ariz., he devised some methods that allowed employees to feel empowered and an integral part of the company.
Those methods involved some simple pay incentives, but also used company picnics and community service projects to make employees feel that they were part of a family. The result wasn’t a democracy so much as a meritocracy, but it wasn’t a dictatorship. It brought Terrain Systems, Inc. great success and profit.
The story continues now even though Micetic has sold his business. Working for a large, international company, he continues to push for ways to make employees feel significant and valued.
“The hierarchical kind of management just doesn’t seem to work,” says Micetic, who is now president of ISS Grounds Control, Inc., a subsidiary of the Danish company ISS A/S. He sold Terrain Systems in 2002 to a Texas landscape company, Sanitors, Inc., which sold to the Danish company in 2007. He’s stayed through both changeovers. Micetic guides Grounds Control and finds new acquisitions for the umbrella company, and he still uses the principles of employee management from his early years.
Click for the rest of the article... (http://www.lcmmagazine.com/article.php?id=1368)