Question: There is a complicated question about the contact between the manager and the subordinates. How is it possible to become the subordinate’s friend if I am his boss?

Answer: First of all, we prepare the workers, discussing with them how it is possible to act towards the manager as with a friend?

In addition, the manager needs to remain as manager. Life is built according to hierarchy. But we need to create these mutual relationships in the collective, i.e., that on the one hand, from the side of the worker, there won’t be fear of the manager since mutual assistance is the guarantee for effective work in our plant.

Let’s suppose that you can approach the manager like a friend and say, “Listen, this is not working. I think it would be better  to do it this way.” And he would accept you, would understand, would listen to your advice, and would appreciate your advice because at your level from the point of view of the executor, you know more than he does.

Mutual assistance like this will create, not only a good atmosphere in the plant but economic benefits too. We will begin to make the collective equal by assigning a part of the profits to help the most needy. Here we are talking about physical equality between people, between friends. On the one hand, they are working under a manager, and on the other hand, they are friends. And we need to attract those who participate actively during the process of integration.

It may happen that we might discover people in the collective who are not needed and even cause damage. If a person doesn’t participate in the integral system and isn’t beneficial to the collective, not from the view point of his production or from the viewpoint of his cooperation, then we should rid ourselves of him.

To create contact between the manager and the workers under him is not a simple endeavor. One needs to do it very carefully through all kinds of games. Let’s suppose we now are playing with friends. All are identical, “John, how are you? Not Mr. John Smith, but John, how are you?” And then we play as the manager and the worker, and all instantly changes.

A game is a serious matter. In this we train people to work simultaneously at two levels. It is specifically what happens with us with the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah: There is knowledge and there is “faith above reason.” We must do this so that they will feel these two levels without each interfering with each other.

Now they are playing as if everyone is equal, turning to the manager in a friendly way, not being rude, but in a friendly manner. And afterward, in the same way, in a friendly way, playing the manager and the worker under him, thus expressing on the one hand, all the complaints towards our boss at work, and on the other hand, suggesting advice in order to create a good atmosphere for the collective because it also depends on the management.

They make suitable suggestions so that their company will become integral in terms of performance and in terms of the general atmosphere because it is based on these two parameters. They will begin to discuss them both as equal partners and as a manager and workers.
[122027]
From KabTV’s “Through Time” 9/23/13

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