Chapter 10 Business and Professional Communication Ethics

I worked in retail for 7 years before I came to the U.  I was a corporate trainer for the Dayton's-Marshall Field's-now Macy's stores.  I participated in all three conversions from Dayton's and being owned by Target and then sold, then being turned into Marshall Fields from Dayton's and then being sold again and converted to Macy's.  For any of the team members who were there in the beginning, it was hard to not come out at the end, completely disillusioned with what had happened over the last 4 years.

We went from team members to employees and guests became customers. The attitude from the top down was that we should all be relieved that we still had jobs, but the sense of direction in where we were going was now lost.  What was our goal?  Who were we?  We had gone from being a Minnesota based company, to a company based on the East coast, and all we really knew about that company was that they sponsored a parade on Thanksgiving Day and that most of is had grown up watching it.

The text discusses temporal direction  attention to the direction of a company is essential for 2 reasons, first direction shapes the use of energy and resources, second if one knows the direction and it is possible to engage necessary changes when and if needed, one cannot change what one does not know or understand. (page 183)

Without the sense of direction of how we fit into the new store brand, team workers began to be crabby at work, every little perceived slight led to grumbling that nothing would ever be the same now.  When the discount policy was changed that they would no longer accept cash or check they would only accept store credit card there was a near stampede of people leaving and looking for work elsewhere.  There was no sense of direction, employees considered every change in policy a betrayal of long standing trust and loyalty.  I myself had to decide if the mission of a new store that had policies and procedures that were so different were going to make me feel energized to try something new or exhausted from dealing with all of the changes and unhappy people around me.  Ultimately I stayed for 6 more months and finally had enough and decided that while the new direction was starting to appear and that the people who were so angry at first were beginning to soften that I had expended too much energy on the transition and I needed to leave.