Marine (YouTube) Scandal & Blood sucking Fiends Teach About Management

Many of you have seen or heard about You Tube video showing US Marines urinating on bodies.  Marine Corps leadership called the actions "wholly inconsistent with the high standards of conduct and warrior ethos that we have demonstrated throughout our history."  Investigators are trying to determine whether the commanders knew of the misconduct or whether a breakdown in discipline occurred.

For those of you who are in a position of responsibility, look for the lesson here:

THE POLICIES YOU SPOUT ARE WORTHLESS UNLESS FOLLOWED.

PEOPLE WILL DO WHAT THEY WANT IF THEY THINK NO ONE IS LOOKING OR IF THEY THINK YOU WOULD DO THE SAME.

So what does Blood sucking Fiends have to do with this? Plenty. Blood sucking Fiends  is a book by author Christopher Moore (also author of another great management title Practical Demon Keeping). The story revolves around vampires, San Francisco, and a group of employees known as “the Animals.”

The Animals work for Safeway as the night stock crew. Their favorite past time at work, other than getting drunk, is turkey bowling.  According to Wikipedia,

“Turkey bowling is a sport which is based on ordinary bowling: a frozen turkey serves as a bowling ball and 10 plastic bottles of soft drinks or water are the bowling pins. The turkey is bowled down a smooth surface, for example, ice.”

What is the link you might be asking between Turkey Bowling and desecrating the dead-lack of supervision, lip service (at best), abandonment (bad) of organizational principles, or a complete “screw you” attitude (very worst).

Take a minute to think about it.  Then step up to the plate and do the right thing.