Courtesy of tutorfidelis.com

In the Bible in Luke Chapter 10 a man who was an expert in the law asked Jesus the famous question that has inspired the Good Samaritan Laws all over the world two thousand years later. I submit the question to you in terms of the workplace?

Who is my Co-worker? The story that Jesus told was about a man who was beaten and left for dead, and how a Priest passed on by without  helping him, we’ll call that Senior Management since that is their bailywick to  know and administer the policies and rules of the company and be responsible for it’s overall well being. I particularly  take that to include all the employees.  Then a Levite, these were the people who there assist the Priests  and  so we will call them Human Resources, since they administer the benefits and assist with implementing policy over employees and even further to improve the employee’s lot so long as it is in the best interest of the company.

So then after all the right people who should have offered assistance passed on by and avoided their duty and showed no compassion to the poor man, a Samaritan comes by and stops and helps to the extent of taking the wounded man to the doctor and paying his doctor bill.

Who should we call the Samaritan in the company? Let’s call them the employee who is truly dedicated to the company and has compassion on their co-workers. Who thinks of others and notices when they are in need of help. The Good Samaritan in the company is usually that person who is the “Influencer” to the others. The example that people admire and respect and want to identify with.

So here is the rub, the person who employees should respect and admire and want to identify with is the Senior Management and Human Resources. That is their jobs to be an example and to be vigilant to what is going on around them.

So now that we have established some roles that people should be fulfilling I want to talk about some real examples of how we walk on by and ignore our co-workers. This will tie back to the previous post about “Moments of Truth” in that there are moments that are critical to people being successful for the company and in the company.  Some examples are when you promote someone? do you make sure they have first the complete support of the upper managment? do all the other employees know that and respect that? Have you made arrangements with the people who will be in supporting roles and crossfunctional roles to see to it that they get what they need to be successful in a timely manner?

Have you made sure that the office manager has access to purchase supplies when needed? have you given authority to the supervisors to adjust the work schedule? Do your sales representatives have access to your content experts to get answers to potential customers questions? in a timely manner?  do you have things structured so that when the sales person has a live one on the line and you are not available that they can authorize or access the information to quote and close the deal?

If you have not done these things then you are walking by the wounded co-worker who was just trying to do what they were tasked to do and got beaten and left on the road. Even worse you are walking right by them and thinking to yourself it is their fault and you are innocent and most of all not involved. When the truth is you are totally responsible and hurting your employees future, career, ability to provide for their family! You are holding back the company from growing and worst of all you are content with that situation? if you are guilty of this Management Malpractice you should talk to your employees and find out just how many ways you have let them down? Ask them to tell you ideas of how and when things should happen to improve the outcome of the work they are trying to accomplish.

I had a smart employee tell me once ” if you ever meet a good manager you have met someone who has hurt a lot of people, because a good manager only gets that way by making mistakes. When managers make mistakes other people pay the price!” I agree and hope you will take this as seriously as you should because  it is how companies go out of business.