Dear Bob ...I agree with your perspective on clock punching Jim ("Rights, privileges, fairness and equality," Keep the Joint Running, 5/5/2008). But in the best of all worlds (which seems rare to me), the manager would be proactive instead or reactive -- s/he would be working with and encouraging staff to find ways to be more productive and then allocate resources as needed so those increases occur.As my "friend Dear Bob …I agree with your perspective on clock punching Jim (“Rights, privileges, fairness and equality,” Keep the Joint Running, 5/5/2008). But in the best of all worlds (which seems rare to me), the manager would be proactive instead or reactive — s/he would be working with and encouraging staff to find ways to be more productive and then allocate resources as needed so those increases occur.As my “friends” in the lean community keep reminding me, the people who do the work know a lot about what helps them and what hinders them as well as where the waste is. I agree with you, but I also believe that most people don’t get up in the morning and say to themselves “My goal for today is to set a new standard of mediocrity that will go down in the record books as a standard to live down to.” If individuals are just there to collect a paycheck then that is what they have been taught is appropriate (ala Deming).In a prior incarnation as a department chair in a community college, I managed some tenured faculty members who seemed very de-motivated and I can assure you that no one goes into that business to get rich and famous.They were de-motivated because of what the organization had “done to them.” I quickly learned that working on the hard cases was a poor use of resources. Instead I worked with the many who were still motivated to support their new learning and innovations in teaching and learning methods. Their enthusiasm did more to encourage the hard cases than anything that I could have done directly, but then when one of hard cases came to me with a reasonable professional development proposal, I was quick to support it. No student should have to be in an educational environment where the teacher is just biding time.On a related note, I read yesterday a perspective on morale that you might find interesting. The person said that if pay was $1.00 that people with low morale produced about $0.25 worth and that people with high morale produced $3.00 worth. There is no question in my mind who is responsible for morale and it is not the people “on the line.”– Watching Clock Punching Jim Dear Watcher …It is regrettably the case that while some employees are self-motivated and most others are amenable to motivation, there are those who are just there for the paycheck and do only what it takes to continue to collect it.I have no quibble with anything you say, other than your underestimate of what proportion of the total effort high-morale employees contribute. There is an inescapable point, though, and I don’t know whether you’re taking it into account: Employees bring their expectations with them when starting an new job — their morale, attitudes, stick-to-it-iveness and so on aren’t a blank slate on which their current manager writes.Quite the opposite – those expectations begin with their upbringing: Clock-punchers beget more clock-punchers, just as low-confidence parents are more likely to be the ones who tell their kids, “You have to be realistic — you’ll never be the scientist who cures cancer. Why don’t you get a good job as a nurse?”Effective leaders have a positive impact on morale, drive, enthusiasm and everything that goes along with it. There are, however, limits to that impact, because no matter how effective a leader you are, it’s hard to have more of an impact than Mom. – Bob Technology Industry