DRUG TESTING COMPROMISES TRUST

Alaska Journal of Commerce, October 31, 1994, p. 10

By Tom Peters

Q: What's your reaction to the widespread use of drug testing as a
condition of employment and random drug testing as a condition of continued
employment? --- A seminar participant, Houston, Sept. 22, 1994

A: I think it's absolute rubbish! Am I for drug-or booze-impaired
employees disrupting others and creating safety hazards in the workplace?
Don't be absurd. Of course not. But that puts the cart way before the
horse.

Put aside productivity and safety issues. Let's talk about what
makes any business tick: super folks who trust one another, care about one
another and are committed to working hard together to create great outcomes
for each other -- and their customers.

Trust. Respect. Commitment. Mutual support. Each is wholly at odds
with intrusive, impersonal assessment measures. That is, drug tests (and,
to my mind, canned psychological-assessment tests, secret monitoring of
telemarketers, et al., and, heaven knows, lie detector tests).

Start at the beginning. Your recruiting process should say to the
candidate, "How'd you like to be part of our community, do neat things
together, grow individually and with your peers?" Hence, recruiting
becomes a painstaking, two-way courting ritual, complete with coffee dates,
flirting, weekend strolls, dinner with the parents, proposals on bended
knee and an exchange of solemn vows of fidelity. That is, lots of folks,
especially would-be peers, should spend lots of time with janitorial and
senior-engineering prospects alike -- in a variety of settings over several
days or weeks. In the process, there is little doubt -- based on my 30
years of experience and observation -- that the habitual substance abusers,
malcontents, deadbeats and ne'er do-wells will be rooted out.

Is my recruiting model expensive? Yup. But what's more important
than recruiting? Recruiting is strategy -- though too few firms, large or
small, play it that way.

What holds in hiring obviously holds 10 times over after arrival on
the scene: "Welcome aboard. Let's work together to create something
special. To grow each day. To cuddle our customers. And, incidentally,
be prepared, on demand, to take a whiz in a bottle, slimeball."
No, that doesn't cut it.
What does cut it, once Ms. or Mr. New is aboard, is delivering your
promise of a trusting, committed, nurturing environment -- with sky-high
expectations for performance and accountability. In such settings, the
best "enforcers" by far are the employee's coach-mentor-peers. And such
peers, in my experience, are mericiless toward those who violate the
group's trust.

The answer I've given so far is clinical. Let me be more personal:
1) I'm a Bill of Rights freak -- and a privacy freak. A line in
the anti-Vietnam war musical "Hair" goes: "I'm not dyin' for no white
man." My equivalent in this case: "I'm not pissin' in a bottle for no
corporate cop." It's how I feel personally -- and, by extension, as a
business owner / leader.

2) I run a company with about 25 employees. They are wonderful
people. (That's why we hired them!). I would no more consider asking them
to submit to a drug test as a condition of employment than I would try to
fly to the moon without a rocket. I am disgusted by the very idea at my
place -- or yours.

"But your place isn't some fast-food franchise with a bunch of
poorly raised kids as employees," you rejoin. Maybe not. I suppose we've
got more degreed and multi-degreed folks than the average fast-food place.
But what's that got to do with the price of fries? If I owned a fast-food
franchise, I'd take the same approach I do now. I'd only want neat folks
on board -- age 17 or 67. And I'd be out to build an environment of trust
and respect -- as much as in my own profesional-serving company.

"But what if you owned 20 franchises?" So what? If I owned 200,
my priority would be the folks who manage them. I'd want to get a charge
out of being around each of them. I'd get very directly involved in their
hiring, and I'd make damned sure my People Department (that's what
Southwest Airlines calls its human resources function) got the point:
Hire neat people you like; you can teach the rest.

No I'm not pissing in a bottle. And nobody who works for me is
going to be forced to do so either. And if there were a law that required
me to ask them to do it, I'd close my place down before I'd comply.
If you want an environment of trust, care, compassion -- which is
the only kind of environment that will breed trust, care and compassion for
customers -- then stay the hell out of people's personal space!

(Tom Peters is a syndicated national columnist.)


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