Manager Sandwich: The Middle Manager's Survival Blog

When I was younger, I would ask my Grandfather Harry about the family business.  My Great Grandfather Sam was a cooper before he emigrated from Belarus to Canada, and later to the United States at the turn of the 20th century.  His father Avraham (my great-great grandfather) and his grandfather Shmuel Zelek (my great-great-great grandfather) were coopers as well.  Coopers are tradesmen that make wooden barrels from oak staves and lids, bound wrought iron bands.  It is a combination of carpentry and blacksmithing that was essential to packaging goods up into the mid 20th century.  Today, cooperage is mainly for whiskey barrels utilized to age the liquor and add special characteristics. www.barrelsdirect.com Originally, when my Great Grandfather immigrated to the United States, he worked as a heat treater in a Flint, Michigan auto plant making driveshafts.  His brother Ed and him formed a barrel making business that last a few years before they went their sep...

As Labor Day approaches, I again have been contemplating what it takes to be a valuable middle manager.  I grew up in the Detroit area and have worked in Michigan for half of my adult life.  As an engineer I was attracted to heavy industry.  The first third of my career was spent at a large integrated steel mill with 3500+ employees organized by the United Steel Workers of America.  As a 28 year old general foreman, nothing prepared me for the daily confrontations of an organized environment.  My father, taught me important lessons relating to why companies become organized by unions, and how it has been usually the fault of poor management.  Poor management directly correlates with the poor treatment of the workforce.  During the middle third of my career, I joined a newer steelmaker that was a vibrant and growing leader in the steel industry.  The management of the company were also its owners, and fully understood the integral part that the w...