How am I preparing myself? Skill updating, like, management/leadership (learning how to patiently deal with employees who've never had an original thought), computers and software, communication (presentations), writing, project management, business plan preparation, accounting principles, and so on and so on. Not to mention learning more about the technologies and service enhancements that our company seems to deploy on a near quarterly basis.

Good luck with becoming your own personal change agent (sorry - a very management-like cliché). It can happen. It can work. Because the things that we can change are waiting only for us to change them.

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: Hi all,

: I read in the paper a few days ago where the Gore-Tex company doesn't have bosses and where the company is 25 percent employee-owned. This sounds so much better than what I face every day. I guess they allow the workers, which are called "associates" to choose their own managers. Things work pretty well I guess. And the workers feel like they actually own something and like coming to work. What a concept! Did anyone else read about this? I also remember hearing something about a progressive management structure at a Harley Davidson plant in the Midwest. I'd be interested in hearing other stories of how a company can be run the right way. Truly getting what we want despite the boss...