Many of you will remember that, several years ago, when a devastating Tsunami hit Indonesia, Malaysia, and India, the people at EllisDon responded immediately. Within just a few days, we had pledged donations from around the company totaling over $40,000, which the company then matched, and which we quickly and carefully dispersed in order to ensure that every dollar went to aid those who needed it.

We have all seen this week the devastation in Haiti. It"s unspeakable. Surely, we need to act again, and in the least, repeat our past efforts, this time for the citizens of Haiti. I don"t have the answers, and am happy to get suggestions. But I understand that the federal government is willing to match all private donations. And EllisDon is willing to match every dollar donated by our employees. We will again strive to ensure that every dollar goes directly to Haitians in need.

Unarguably, we are all living very fortunate lives. Our goal is to get EllisDon"s total over $100,000 this time around so that with the government we can make a $200,000 difference. It will go a long way.

 Many of you will remember that, several years ago, when a devastating Tsunami hit Indonesia, Malaysia, and India, the people at EllisDon responded immediately. Within just a few days, we had pledged donations from around the company totaling over $40,000, which the company then matched, and which we quickly and carefully dispersed in order to ensure that every dollar went to aid those who needed it.

When I was in Calgary, a few eons ago, I hired a lot of people. When asked about EllisDon’s vacation policy, I’d sometimes say: “Well, if your client’s happy, your project is going extremely well, everyone is getting along, and it’s very profitable, there is little chance that we are going to argue about how many holiday days you’ve taken. However, if you have to be tracked down because your work is beset with problems, the project is losing money and behind schedule and the client is angry, then you better not be on a golf course in Arizona.” (The person would then smile and say “I was being serious”. I’d reply “Hey, so was I”.)

Now I am reading that more and more companies (including IBM) are moving to a policy of unstructured, ‘unlimited’ holidays’, where the company doesn’t even try to track how many holidays you have taken each year. There is a job to do, and people are measured on performance. There are ‘guidelines’, and people have to work things out with their boss, and both must make sure that the holidays are achieved. But at these companies, head office doesn’t track, measure or enforce.

Obviously, people should take all their holiday time, and be accountable to themselves and their families for that. But I’d suggest that all the time head offices spend (valiantly) measuring and recording everyone’s holidays is a waste of time: It can’t be done. Plus, more and more, companies are asking people to work and to be accessible well beyond the traditional ‘9 to 5’. Even when many people are on holidays, their blackberries are on. Week-ends are for catching up.

There is a flip side as well: Two years ago, a fellow left EllisDon and gave us a bill for four untaken holiday weeks. He was lying. He had taken plenty of time off, and everyone knew it. But because he hadn’t called Head Office and recorded them, the computer showed he hadn’t taken them. Fairness cuts both ways, and this has to end.

So we are asking our people what they would think about an unstructured, untracked approach to holidays at EllisDon. People need to get the job done. We all need to communicate with each other about where we are and who’s doing what. We need to treat each other fairly, the client excellently; we need to achieve our goals.

But for crying out loud, we need to take all of our holidays. And some extra time for the extra hours worked. If there is a family emergency, take off, just go.

Unlimited holidays. It will be interesting to see the reaction.

An Unlimited Holiday Policy?

Everybody appears to think that management by consensus is the way to build a successful company. I get this advice from every possible direction. And who could disagree – you forge a consensus on your direction, strategy and every key issue, and then you have everyone pulling together with unified enthusiasm in the same direction. Who could argue with that?

I’m out. It doesn’t work and never will. People don’t all agree with each other, and when they all do, that is the best possible sign that you are all going in the wrong direction.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s crucial to put everything on the table for absolutely everyone to see. And I am all for vigorous, passionate, all out debates. Everybody gets their say in a respectful but very energetic atmosphere. But then a decision needs to get made, and you can’t have everyone holding a veto.

First, people don’t like change and are often threatened by it (sometimes justifiably, sometimes not). If you are going to introduce real change, you will never get consensus. Second, if you do push for a consensus, the necessary compromise to get everyone to sign on will be profound, and likely fatal to the original initiative. Consensus can be good, it can never be great. In fact, the best, transformational decisions are always the most controversial.

Looking back, here are some things would not exist today if consensus was a prerequisite for moving forward:

Far better to take risks, to make mistakes - to have your reach exceed your grasp - than to suffer the eternal mediocrity of ‘consensus management’. This is a concept that needs to be slain.

Haiti. It’s Time to Help

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