Employees' Association Bridges Technical/Management Gap

Abstract

It has lowered all the walls. That, in a nutshell, is what the Technical Community of Monsanto has done, according its current chairman, Monsanto chemist Karl E. Koenig. The Technical Community of Monsanto (TCM) is a grassroots network of some 4500 Monsanto research scientists, engineers, and other professional-level technical employees. Its purposes, as stated more formally in its charter, are to nurture personal communication, the exchange of ideas, and a spirit of cooperation among Monsanto's technical people and to encourage the growth of individual technical competence. But, as Koenig points out, it has done more than that. Perhaps most important, it has greatly facilitated communication between management and technical people—two groups that often tend be ill at ease with each other. TCM had its beginnings in 1973 when Ralph H. Munch, a now retired Monsanto physical chemist, learned of a somewhat similar organization at 3M's research center in St. Paul. Munch suggested ...