Unit #2
Assignment #2
The Way of the Beaver
Question #1 – Name the three key pillars of “The Way of the Beaver”.
Situation - Jason Tinsley has replaced Jared Jerko at the Troublestone Quarry. Jason
has taken opportunities to work along side his crew members and talk with them about
their backgrounds and families. He calls his crew members by their names or the
nicknames they prefer. While listening to his workers he has interjected positive remarks
and mentioned things that the quarry does for the community or products that have been
built from the stone the quarry produces. Jason has noticed that many of workers don’t
seem interested in avoiding him and many seem to treat him like a friend coming onto the
job. Those front end loaders have noticeably increased the production of the crew and
after being allowed to pick them out the crew seems to be taking a personal sense of
ownership. The maintenance people take a special pride in keeping the loaders nice and
on several occasions have stayed late to make sure that servicing gets done on them. To
be sure there are still problems with the crew. Just this last week Big Bob beat Randy
Rooky and put him in the hospital before Jason and Camile could calm him down.
Randy had run the bucket of the loader into the pile rough after Big Bob had threatened
him several times for abusing his loader.
Jason set up the bonus program to reward workers who where there on time during weeks
when the production target was achieved, but Jason still has a problem with absenteeism
and often has to work some over-time during the week to give the crew Saturdays off and
to show them the rewards of productivity by distributing bonuses (absenteeism forces the
remaining workers to carry the load). Jason has explained that once they are hitting
production regularly the bonuses will be discontinued and the money built into their
permanent pay rates. The workers actually seem most grateful to have their weekends
off. One weekend the crew went out squirrel hunting together and all came back with
squirrel skin caps to show they had the spirit of the squirrel. They had saved the biggest
and nicest squirrels for a cap they made for Jason. That lunch they had kind of a picnic
and all had squirrel meat chili and barbequed squirrel meat sandwiches while listening to
recordings of the “Chipmunks”.
Jason still faces some problems. His haul trucks and drills are still in bad shape and a
constant break-down nightmare. Elley Electric has developed a real sense of purpose in
making sure that the electrical systems on all the equipment are in order. She makes it a
point to be in the yard when the crew brings in the equipment and to ask each one about
their experience with the equipment. It is now to the point that electrical malfunctions
are rare on any of the production equipment while just before Jason was hired they were
the number one source of downtime. Elley does hand lists of possible mechanical
problems to Mike the Mechanic so he can assign things appropriately to his assistants
Larry Lubejob and Peter Piston but outside of the loaders that they all take as their
personal “flag-ships” Mike seems pretty indifferent to getting things fixed – its an
impossible task he says. Larry Lubejob is absent half the time so Mike is always short on
people he needs and Peter Piston seems more interested in “horse-play” than getting work
done.
Absenteeism, overtime, and equipment break-downs make costs high, though
Jason is hitting the production targets and customers are getting their stone on time everytime. Calvin Coolstone has just brought Jason some very bad news. Because of high
costs at the quarry the operation just lost a bid for a very large stone contract without
which the quarry will have to begin laying off before the middle of the summer. Calvin
is pursuing other contracts to bridge over the present season and keep the employees
working but the mine is going to have to have lower costs. Calvin comments that the
over-time and maintenance costs are killing them and then adds “and don’t ask for new
trucks and drills because we can’t afford them now”.
Jason is in a little bit of shock as he begins looking over his crew. Some of his
crew members are doing excellent work. Camile Cobblestone is there everyday driving a
truck with a bright smile on her face. She is alert to anything going wrong. She has
found nice ways of talking with the loader operators to see that her truck is loaded
evenly, up to capacity, and not battered around. She regularly reports any potential
maintenance needs and doesn’t get discouraged or judgemental when work on the truck
does not get done. She has made several suggestions about trouble spots on haul roads
and in fact has just produced some suggestions on haul road maintenance that could avoid
some tire damage costs. None of Jasons other drivers measure up. Terry Tire, Lee
Lugbolt, and Mason Motor have all improved on their absenteeism records (they now
work 4 of 5 days they are suppose to) but they are generally discouraged with the
condition and break-downs on the equipment yet still they do little to report problems –
“what is the use they never fix it anyway”. Kevin Koffeebreak is pretty good about
showing up but he usually has his truck parked somewhere while he is doing something
else – using the restroom, taking a break, or fixing this or that for hours on end.
Big Bob is also there everyday treating his job as a loader operator like the whole
world would come to an end without him. He treats his loader like a big baby and
everyone knows that as the care of the loaders goes so goes their face. Big Bob is an
experienced loader operator and whenever there is a tough loading job or pile Jason puts
Big Bob on it and he takes the pile apart without hardly scratching the loader and puts the
material in the trucks for a perfect fill. He has a lot of good ideas but he is a little bossy
and always runs around pecking or threatening his fellow workers for the way they do
their jobs . Big Bob fusses out the drillers and most of the truck drivers don’t like to be
loaded by Big Bob because nothing they can do in positioning a truck is good enough.
Billy Bucket is there almost everyday except for taking a few hunting days off. He does
his job with a smile, and takes good care of his loader but his operator skill is nowhere
near that of Big Bob. Jason has just hired Newman Newboy as a loader operator because
after the beating he took, Randy Rooky is not coming back to work. Newman Newboy is
fresh out of high school, and ran some big farm machinery including tractors with
hayforks or buckets, but that is the sum of his credentials for running a front end loader.
Brad Buttonbit is a good drill operator but a terror to his assistants whom he
criticizes constantly. His regular assistants Robert Rockneck and Randy Rod are absent
half the time and Jason is always having to pull his parts man Walley Warehouse or one
of the blasting assistants Freddy Fuse or Kerry Cap to help Brad in order to keep patterns
drilled. Pulling Walley from the warehouse increases problems with parts and puts
maintenance work further behind and Sammy Seismograph is getting pretty tired of
having to work his crews over-time to keep the blasting patterns charged so they can keep
muck ready for the loaders. Freddy Fuse and Kerry Cap believe that blasting is
important, but they do have an absenteeism problem and comment that they don’t get to
do their job half the time and have to work with Brad.
Question #2 – Most crews consist of a few superstars, a lot of “middle people” and a
few varmints. Classify the people on Jason’s crew into one of the three categories giving
a reason for each categorization.
Question #3 – Jared Jerko threatened his crew that they would loose their job if they did
not respond to his plans (ie the quarry would close). Now Jason has a real situation
where there will be layoffs unless the quarry can bid some low priced stone. How should
Jason handle this situation? Should he even tell his crew about the problem? How would
he guard against Jared Jerko’s problem where costs came down for a while and did not
stay down.
Question #4 (closely related to #3). A manager needs to look ahead and see where there
are problems or needs for improvement. On the other hand it is also important to let
some ideas and plans come from the team. What cost areas do you see as critical in
getting costs down and what situations at the quarry are causing those high cost situations
to exist? If Jason were to talk to his team about the layoff situation which of these things
should he view as critical that must come from management and which should he rely on
his team to bring up and plan solutions for?
Question #5 What situations at the mine do you see that either are or are not consistent
with “the way of the Beaver”? Which principles or ideas do those situations violate or
support? Are there any of these situations that you feel demand immediate and direct
management control? If there are situations that you feel call for immediate management
action, what do you think specifically Jason should do about them?
Question #6 Are there resources or training that you see that Jason’s crew is in need of
to better place his crew members in a position to succeed? What are those resources and
who should Jason be trying to get them for?
Question #7 Which individuals should Jason focus his attention on for the immediate
future? What should he be trying to make happen as he works with them? Why did you
pick these individuals as the focus of Jason’s efforts?