| Aside from being
deceptive in nature, the Long
Term High Risk Operator { or LTHRO
} often is very skilled at developing rapport with
fellow employees as well as supervisory staff and
management persons. Often they can be
charismatic and are influence-rs. They are smooth talkers. Some are alphas. They are all charmers. They are all con artists. Executives are reliant upon their captains (middle management) to relay timely and accurate information as they are one of the primary information pipeline supplies with which executives guide the corporation. Middle management is relied upon to make the call on keeping good employees and dumping those who are undesirable. The rapport and bond is sealed on trust and confidence. When pertinent information is not passed up to the executive level, those at the top are left in the dark and specific issues do not get appropriately addressed. The issues can linger and fester. The skills that most team leads, shift engineers, plant foreman and plant managers possess are technical in nature. Some very exceptional people also possess strong people and leadership skills { Soft Skills }. But to see into a con man's mind and then do something about it..., that is the exception. The consequence of not everyone in management being exceptional is, technical issues get resolved but people issues more often do not. Corporate bodies have a dismal record with respect to this. Yes. Some con men and women you can see coming from a mile away. We are not talking about those ones. People like those usually do get tossed. Plant foremen and plant managers often feel caught in the middle of not knowing who to trust in a "he said, she said" scenario. It's not easy and it's not fair. Who is more often believed? Is it the hard working supervisor who focuses on getting the job done or is it the the employee who is not doing his job and has spent time developing confidence and trust relationships with management? Belief goes where the confidence is most prevalent. If the bulk of confidence resides with a conman, then that is the direction where decisions are swayed. At the end of the day a conflict will be characterized as another personal conflict between a supervisor and a subordinate. We need to turn that around where your corporation is no longer vulnerable to that type of personality. Want to see things change then do something different. Allow an undercover operator to feed you fresh visual intelligence so you may rid your organization of a cancer that could cost you lives, reputation and billions in losses. If a concerned employee who doesn't get results from his immediate supervisor or plant manager, skips protocol by going over middle management's head to report irregularities that middle management did not pass on to the executive level, the information and the employee that skipped protocol are quickly discredited so as to avoid embarrassing middle management. Executives quickly gravitate to what their middle managers represent because of the "trust bond" and believe reality is as it is described to them by middle management. It's a common misinformed state any of us can find ourselves in when we are not being fed the whole truth. I wouldn't want to be the employee that jumped protocol. Their intentions may be good but... They would have a bull's eye painted on their back after a performance like that. Like they say, "The truth can sound stranger than fiction." This is another factor that causes people to not bring information forward. There are many hurtles to overcome as it pertains to doing the right thing to bring about positive change. Not without it's pitfalls. Even I was astounded by the behavior of some people as I witnessed it or saw the aftermath and consequences of their wrong doing. I was left asking myself, "If I am having a difficult time believing what I just saw, How am I going to explain this to my manager?" When I did make the leap, I confirmed the disbelief factor. We've all seen the results of ratting out the bad boys at Enron. Whether it be peers or superiors that get busted, the whistle blowers never come out on the positive side. This is why people tend to keep their mouths shut internally and especially externally. Openly discussing this and moving it up the line of management rarely happens. It's every man and woman for themselves. It is still a highly risky social TABOO. Consequently, high risk operators and their behavior continue to be tolerated. Is this what you want to persist? Another unfortunate occurrence is the reporting do-gooder { or supervisor or shift engineer } gets gas lit or worse, they get discredited by the confidence dynamic created by the relationship between the conman and the plant manager. The conman has the stronger relationship with the plant manager and so the plant manager ends up labeling the reporting do-gooder as a trouble maker or as some one who doesn't know how to get along with others. That has happened to me far too many times. This leaves
the corporation
as well as those that work for it open to victimization and failure. We are all human and subject to the same humanity that cause us to be successful as well as to fail. The Chemical Safety Board website has lots of fine examples of that we can all watch in video format. For best results LTHROs need to be managed internally. There are solutions to this dilemma. The services of the Undercover Operator provides a solution. Why do people allow the behavior of a Long Term High Risk Employee to continue? For the same reasons why some victims of crime will not report a crime against themselves. - Most people want to believe it's not really happening or at least, it's not a problem.The most frequent outcome for those who report is, it will destroy their career and relationships. It's not that the corporation won't significantly benefit from cleaning up the renegades, it's that our culture doesn't fully support the activities required to do the cleanup. There isn't enough time and resources devoted to cultural change to bring about a corporate environment to support these cleanup activities. Fact is, there will never be enough resources to develop the cultural change because it isn't the nature of human social groups to do this. It usually falls on one man with the balls and the brains to take care of the cleanup. The corporate culture and past track record demonstrate a weak and arbitrary commitment when it comes to doing the right thing. Rarely is reporting on one of your own looked upon as a favorable behavior. Few have the necessary support or are willing to deal with the fallout. At the end of scenarios such as these, lives and reputations can be left in ruin. Etc., etc., etc....
Far too often it seems good men and women do nothing to eliminate high risk operators if that LTHRO has social clout. These are the high risk operators that become deeply embedded in your organization. The only thing that makes it easy for people to report and take appropriate to be taken, is if a High-Risk Operator is not influential and well liked by many. But that is not why we are here. We are not looking at the short term, unpopular, short term High-Risk Operator that eventually gets punted. We are dealing with the insidious LTHRO who is deeply embedded in the social fabric of your wage earning operations staff. Few employees have the acuity to identify as well as take appropriate action and often circumstances make it unsafe to do so. Most employees fall victim to their social conditioning as well as the highly evolved social skills of the LTHRO. The LTHRO is well liked and very influential. This is why they persist and continue to put themselves, other employees, corporate reputations and profits at risk every day they are in control of some part of the business process. The LTHRO can be the greatest threat to everything in your business. Some corporations have the foresight to implement a "Whistle Blower Program". The Whistle Blower Program does have merit and demonstrates the leadership acknowledges no organization is pure and exempted from wrong doing. However there are unfortunate limitations with this approach. I have witnessed LTHROs flourishing in an environment with a "Whistle Blower Program". Nothing is perfect BUT somethings are better than others. Having a variety of protections in place can be best. Frequently there are consequences suffered by the individual who turns in a LTHRO, even if it is through a third party Whistle Blower program where confidentiality is clearly NOT assured. Whistle blowers are obligated to identify themselves, leaving themselves open to retribution. The bad guys may be doing stupid stuff but they are never too stupid to figure out who is blowing the whistle on them which is why few people will utilize a Whistle Blower Program. Whistle Blowers often become casualties of this process. The corporation may succeed in eliminating a bad apple BUT may sacrifice a well intended and productive employee in the process.
Don't make these mistakes:
These people are not appropriately educated and trained or have the industrial and technical expertise to know and understand enough about your business to do anything close to the kind job you need done. Employees will detect something suspicious very early on and compensate for it, leaving the investigation and investigator compromised.
Without question, these people are too socially compromised/contaminated to provide untainted results. A high level of conflict of interest exists. It's like having the fox guard the hen house. The secret is out before the investigation gets off the ground. It don't work!
These people are usually "TOO DARN BUSY" or, out of touch with what is going on and or socially compromised/contaminated. If you are using any of these techniques it is the reason why you have LTHROs still exposing people and profits to unacceptable risks. These are the reasons why these approaches rarely, if ever work. It is also the reason why LTHROs continue to thrive in industry. Admittedly, there are situations when a corporation has an employee or a small number of employees that are exceptional and can keep the organization or a portion of it "clean". Unfortunately it is rare and in a large multinational organization, it can be hit and miss. A possible solution: The formula for superior results is to parachute in a highly experienced undercover operator (qualified third party) who is truly impartial for accurate reporting results. The undercover operator is not socially connected or live within a hundred miles of the plant site so as to limit bias in reporting integrity. No one onsite is informed of the undercover operator's mission (This includes security, plant manager(s) and or plant superintendent(s) friends or relatives of upper management). The undercover operator, operates under an innocuous pretense for their personal protection, to preserve the integrity of the observations and to insure no one is alerted to the fact there is an observation in progress. The undercover operator monitors plant operator behavior.
Once observations are complete towards the end of the contract period, the undercover operator generates a report(s) in the form of multiple digital video(s), digital photo(s) and word document(s) report(s). This revealing, surgically targeted and infinitely definitive report is transported by the undercover operator observer to corporate headquarters. The information contained within the report can be confidentially and impartially digested by select personnel at head office without Social Compromise/Contamination. Thus, high quality decisions are made by the right people in the right location with the right information. This may give rise to necessary and appropriate changes as it relates to LTHROs and their continuing employment.
Polygraph verification is available for evidence validation purposes at the client's request. Client may choose the polygraph administrator. I do my best to eliminate the guess work and make the final decisions for your team to be fast, easy and with little or no guess work involved. There are three categories of Operator observations available:
Whether it be one plant operator of one thousand plant operators, the undercover operator can weed out the the high risk employees to improve security, safety, public reputation and profitability for your corporation.
Confidentiality on the
part of both parties is an absolute necessity so the
observation process may bear fruit.
Confidentiality assures the undercover operator's
safety during and after the investigation. It
also preserves the opportunity for the undercover
operator to provide future investigations for the same
client.
Available for assignment in Canada, the USA, Britain, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany and Japan. Contact me using your LinkedIn account. Corporate email address made available when under contract and upon request. Thank you. I am a certified Second Class Power Engineer with supervisory experience. My certification and safety codes responsibilities allow me to offer this service without a PI license. I am NOT a private investigator. |