You can also visit the Company Doctor's web site. When a small start-up business begins to experience an initial expansion of orders, sales and profits, executives and other employees are usually working closely together in an atmosphere of excitement, dedication and bonding together. However, as the company grows beyond the bounds of a very small enterprise, executives migrate to a front office, middle managers appear, and directives flow down to the rest of the employees, who begin to feel a deterioration of the earlier bonding.
Employees frequently atrophy from feeling empowered to feeling abandoned and powerless.
As a result, morale and productivity suffer, leading to a drain on the company's bottom line. If this environment continues, employees lose trust in management, widening the gap and setting the stage for unionization and confrontation. The primary reason unions exist today is because of the sins of past malevolent management, executives who either deliberately or inadvertently lost touch with their employees and took advantage of the situation. When employees in a business believe they are fairly treated and are made to feel they are necessary and valued members of the organization, it is far more difficult for unions to flourish. During the 1990's, restoration of lost employee trust and dedication has been achieved through the creation of empowered teams, with management no longer issuing directives but rather defining boundary conditions within which the team is free to act as it sees fit.