A Funny Sad Side of Business in America

A few years back a partner and I lead a turnaround back east for a large retail chain of stores. There supply chain left a lot to be desired and we were hired to turn around their 'underperforming east coast warehouse operations. The warehouse was 600,000 square feet 270 employees handling everything from small items to large crated items.

When we arrived and did individual interviews with all managment it was evident that one of the problems was at the top. They guy was just over his head. We worked with him and on the second day on the job I had to fire two young 19 year olds in the warehouse for turning tricks, on first shift by the way. Seems some of the brothers in the warehouse had built 'caves' out of the crates and were playing cards and pimping the young ladies out.

For the next six months every week like clockwork the local police showed up with a warrant one of our workers had violated parole. My partner called it our 'reverse work release program'. It took the better part of a year to weed out the drug dealers, pimps and users and we wondered how could a company let this happen? Now dont get me wrong, when I was consulting operations like this kept me in business but my partner and I marveled.

It was our first gig that we were bailing people out of jail to get them to work, this guy was actually a good one and we needed him. But you had the GM heaving a Coke at the wall during Staff Meeting, landing above one of his Manager's heads. The GM had been transferred in from the West Coast and had never led such operations.

We had the culture of inner city east coast clashing with the laid back California culture and unfortunately the CEO wasnt interested in finding a way in the end to merge the two. His attitude was that 'they' need to be part of us not the other way around. That wasnt the issue.

In a year we got the workforce pared down to 130 from the beginning of 270 and we found good people needing a job and wanting one. It wasnt about 'them' and 'us' it was about leadership and doing right. The union had organized them, understandably, when we arrived there was no hot water in the bathrooms and the place looked like Dunkirk. We remodeled the place and before we left had an election and voted the union out of town ... but in the end, when we left, nothing changed.

The company has gone through many financial hard times, turnover and if you're in the place we were, well, you had a good year a few years back but the beat goes on. In every consulting turnaround we've been involved in one common them emerges today ... its the leadership stupid.