I used to think  running a company must be hard work. Now I know it is. Last month I was drafted into the reluctant role of temporary skipper, pending a search for a new chief executive. It wasn't what I'd call fun, but I learned a few things.

Several months before, we had combined two fine companies—each a leader in a part of the market—to create a dominant competitor. But after decades of fighting each other for every piece of business, the two teams were not what I would call brotherly.

We formed an operating group of the two dozen top managers and assembled them in a room. I announced that from now on we would stop blaming the other team for problems and sink or swim together. Henceforth it was an offense to use the names of the former companies except in the past tense. The penalty was one American dollar to be paid immediately in cash.

We decided the best way to get the message around was to use Shawn-mail. Shawn, the company's receptionist, is also the company's de facto communications officer. You want the employees to know something, you don't write a memo. Just tell Shawn. We gave all the money collected through our drumhead justice system to Shawn, who would use it to buy pretzels, popcorn, pizzas and other treats for the employees.

So far it's working great. It's a fun way of making a serious point. Even after three weeks we still collect from $5 to $10 in a two-hour meeting. One of the employees collected a buck from the company's banker. But the crime rate is going down, and the two teams are slowly becoming one team.

Another problem we had was getting people to speak up. The previous chief executive had been extremely autocratic; ideas came from the top. I wanted to change that.

The people who really know how the customer feels are the service reps who take the customers' calls. The people who know about shipping are the forklift drivers and shipping employees who see the product go out the door. And the people who know about capital equipment are the guys in the maintenance department. I wanted to get the knowledge of these people into the decisions we were making to improve our service to customers.

We started with a marathon meeting of the operating group to identify every problem that was affecting our ability to serve our customers or take care of our own employees. If the customers like doing business with us and the employees think it's fun to come to work, everything else will work out.

We ended up with 30 projects, ranked in order of importance to the customer. For each project we appointed a belly-button person from the group to report progress. We then appointed a team of employees from every area of the business touched by the issue to find a solution. The pricing team, for example, might have employees from sales, customer service, accounting and credit on the team. We meet every Thursday, when everyone gets a chance to speak his or her mind. Once we decide on a course of action, we all work together to make it succeed.

To reinforce the message that employees' ideas do improve the business, I gave all the members of the operating group copies of I-Power, Marty Edelston's fabulous book. It shows how to create an organization that draws the best ideas from its own people. Marty's premise is simple: The collected brains of all the people in the company—a kind of human neural network—are a lot smarter than any one brain. This book helps the employees realize that the boss really means it when he says he wants our ideas.

Ordinary employees began showing up, asking if they could borrow a copy. I am on my third case of books already.

I hated having to step in as temporary chief executive, but I'm richer for the experience. I love seeing the people walking taller, stepping faster and feeling proud of themselves. We have seen remarkable examples of leadership, as employees find and implement solutions to small problems—and big ones. We're not where we want to be yet, but customers are starting to call to say they like what they see.

The biggest lesson all this taught me is that the guys who operate a business have tougher jobs than the chairman of the board.