When last we spoke, Mel O'Drama had received a warning from his supervisor, Lee Dingmann, for failing to wear a hardhat on a construction site. As far as Lee is concerned, the situation has been resolved. But Lee is wrong. The disciplinary saga of Mel is about to enter a new and more serious chapter.

Chapter 2: Mel Gets a Written Warning

Two weeks have passed. On a bright and sunny morning, Lee arrives at work and sees an unexpected and unpleasant site: Mel without his hardhat. Lee demands an explanation. Mel gets defensive saying he took off his hardhat because it was making him "sweat too much." Lee decides to give Mel a written warning like the one in the Tools section of SafetyXChange (Tool 1).

Chapter 3: Mel Gets Suspended

Three weeks later, Mel gets caught without his hardhat on for the third time. The company decides to suspend him and sends him a letter like the one in Tools (Tool 2).

Chapter 4: Mel Gets Fired

Alas, Mel's story doesn't have a happy ending. Two days after returning from his suspension, the supervisor spots Mel defiantly striding around the site without his hardhat on. A meeting is held and Mel is fired. Lee writes a memo like the one in Tools Tool 3) summarizing the results of the meeting.

Conclusion

The point of this little play is to remind you that when dishing out discipline it's not enough to act appropriately. You must lay down a paper trail each step of the way to document your actions and the reasons you took them.

As a final note, I want to repeat that discipline is not a by-the-numbers process. Although you need to have a well defined progressive discipline policy, the steps in your policy will vary depending on the circumstances of your workplace, the bargaining process and other factors. Just as importantly, you must apply the steps of your progressive discipline policy - if you even apply it at all or simply terminate an employee for a first offense - in accordance with fairness and common sense.

THIS DATE IN HISTORY

The only known photo of Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address - the arrow is pointing to Lincoln

November 19, 1863

By Glenn Demby

The organizers of the dedication ceremony of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, PA, invited Edward Everett to deliver the principal address. But at the last moment, they got an idea: Why don't we also invite President Lincoln to say a few words.

It was November, 1863. Just four months earlier, the peaceful crossroads town of Gettysburg was the host of another historic event. It started on July 1, when a detachment from the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee marched into town. They were looking for shoes. What they found were units of cavalry from General George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac. Both armies dug in and waged a gruesome battle. Three days and more than 40,000 combined casualties later, Lee's army retreated across the Susquehanna River, never to invade Northern soil again.

Everett was a perfect choice for main speaker. As an orator, the former governor of Massachusetts and current President of Harvard University was second to none. Everett didn't disappoint. He spoke for more than two hours. His speech employed every rhetorical trick in the book, including references to the antique Greek warriors who laid down their lives for their city-states. The crowd, about 15,000 strong, lapped it up.

Lincoln went next. Most were expecting an anti-climactic afterthought to Everett's brilliant oration. Lincoln spoke for three minutes in a high pitched voice that the audience strained to hear. He uttered all of 10 sentences. "The word will little note, nor long remember what we say here," began sentence seven. It was the only thing that Lincoln would say that would prove wrong.

The Gettysburg Address, arguably the greatest oration in U.S. history, has been long remembered. And fittingly so. The word "genius" is overused. Each historical period has a few geniuses. But rare are the moments when the leadership of that period is reposed in the hands of one who truly is a genius. Rarer still is when that leader's genius fills the precise need of his (or her) time.

This convergence of genius, leadership and historic need all converged in one magic three-minute period on this date 144 years ago. Abraham Lincoln was a genius. Yes, he was a brilliant man with a clear mind and strong ideas. But what made Lincoln a genius was his capacity to understand what was happening to his people, find meaning in those events and communicate that meaning in a way that all could understand.

The Gettysburg Address represents the quintessential expression of Lincoln's genius. The Civil War, Lincoln explained, wasn't just a battle over states' rights. It was a test whether a democracy "conceived in liberty" could "long endure." Historically, the ideal of a democratic republic was a contradiction in terms. After all, if decisions were based on popular vote, the majority would exercise tyranny over the minority. To be faithful to democratic principles where "all men are created equal," shouldn't the minority have a right to leave and form their own state, just the way the U.S. colonies had broken from England? The problem, of course, is that secession ad infinitum would ultimately pull apart the republic. How could such a system "long endure," Lincoln wondered aloud.

And then he answered the question. What was needed was "a new birth in freedom." The implications were breathtaking and daring. Lincoln was suggesting that the republic "conceived" by "our fathers" was flawed and needed to be reinvented. And he was right. The principles of the Founding Fathers were fine - "liberty and the proposition that all men are created equal." But the application of those principles had gone awry. The problem, of course, was the existence of slavery.

The Civil War was therefore necessary so that the republic could be remade and perfected. The sacrifices and dedication shown by the soldiers and others of the Republic, said Lincoln, were essential so that this nation would have a "new birth in freedom," and  that "government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

The sad irony of the Gettysburg Address is how little it was appreciated at the time. When Lincoln was done speaking, the applause was pilot but hardly enthusiastic. The newspapers criticized the speech as drivel. But one person who did get it was Edward Everett. "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes," Everett would write the President later.

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

Matthew Brady's photo of the Gettysburg dead

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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