Cage Free Management

Posted by jlubans on December 27, 2021  •  Leave comment (0)

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Caption: Henny Penny (left) keeping her distance in the pasture.

I recently made up a term for a kind of management system or style: cage free.
It was a re-purposing of a term found on an egg carton. As you know nowadays there’s more than one way, including “gluten-free” to market eggs. (There's no gluten in eggs.)
For me, it was a catch phrase* to suggest a better, a new and improved supervisory style superior to ye olde micro-management.
The cage free manager is one prone to let go, to give more range for decision making by the worker.
Well, yes.
But, it turns out - as often happens with management theory - cage free is but a tiny step up from caged management.
Instead of the 93 square inches provided caged birds, cage free gives the hen a bit more indoor space but no access to the out of doors.
While not as felicitous sounding, I should have said: “Pasture-raised management”.
Pasture-raised gives the hen the freedom to roam inside and outside with a cozy covered coop to roost in at day’s end. Of course, the risk from predators is elevated. Risk that effects to both the hen and the farmer or the worker and the supervisor.
The term pasture-raised offers a greater freedom, as depicted with Henny Penny out there with horses and other hens, and almost zero supervision by a manager.
Generally, eggs produced by pasture-raised hens differ markedly- for the better - in color (orangey yolk), size (larger) and flavor. Happy hens.
Well, if there’s any analogy, we do want happy workers, don’t we? Is that not the bailiwick of the “happiness engineers” to be found in the wokest of woke enterprises?
Like so much in human relationships, it depends.
Still, I’ll take pasture raised over the caged option.

*Joining my facetious gluten free management style of the Neo-Boss.

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© Copyright photo and text by John Lubans 2021

Not a Mushroom*

Posted by jlubans on December 20, 2021  •  Leave comment (0)

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Caption: My Christmas Cactus, December 16 2021

It’s amazing what some plants (and people) will do when left alone.
It’s been two years since my Christmas cactus last blossomed. I’d pretty much given up, even gave serious thought (for about 5 minutes) to following the popular gardening advice of covering the plant with a black bag for a dozen hours each day for 6-8 weeks. Too much trouble.
Instead, I let it do its own thing. Gloriously.
Of course, I kept the plant in a temperate zone. I watered it. I talked to it, and lifted its stems to see how it was feeling.
But, the blossoming was all up to the plant.
What about people in the workplace?
A few can be left alone with minimal guidance and support. They are the self-directed. The last thing they needed from me was micromanagement. When they produced, it was like the cactus blossoms in the picture.
However, my favored technique of leaving people alone just did not work with everyone, especially those who needed daily supervision and guidance.
So, as much as I preferred “cage-free” management, my personal style of supervision did not fit all.
While some responded well to my feedback – when I offered it - others simply went on as always regardless of my efforts to inspire or motivate.
Their performance was adequate but hardly thrilling.
The leader’s job is to “know” when to intervene and who to leave alone.
What did I “know” about the Christmas cactus? Enough to let it go its own way.
I suspect most office workers would benefit from a little prompting. Some, from a lot. And, if this latter group protests the increased oversight, well, that may be the necessary push for them to move on and find a better fit elsewhere.
Had I applied the suggested cactus regimen to some of my recalcitrants: keep them in a dark place with a bag over their heads, limit water and lower the temperature, I’d be sure to have
HR knocking on my door – for once, for good cause.

*As in “they keep us in the dark and feed us shit”, a meme of the modern office.

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Lessing’s THE BRAMBLE

Posted by jlubans on December 12, 2021  •  Leave comment (0)

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Caption: “Please, please don’t throw me in the briar patch"


“WILL you kindly explain," said the Willow to the Bramble, "why you are so eager to seize hold of the clothes of every man, woman or child that passes by?
Of what use can their clothes possibly be to you?"
"Of no use," said the Bramble.
"Neither do I wish to take the clothes from them. I only want to tear them."
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Brother Bramble’s in need of an imagine make over? Or, an esteem booster.
What of the shelter he provides to the wee creature fleeing from the baying hound or the screaming hawk?
It’s his tearing of clothes and flesh that protects the weak and denies the brute.

*SOURCE: Lessing, Fables, Book II, No. 27. Translated by G. Moir Bussey.Excerpted From: Cooper, Frederic Taber, 1864-1937. “An argosy of fables; a representative selection from the fable literature of every age and land.” New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. 1921.

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20% off Through December 31 2021
No supply-chain issues here! My books are all American, so when you buy my latest book of workplace fables you can expect speedy delivery. Something to keep in mind as the gift giving season looms.
And, of course, there's no memory chip shortages for printed books :))

And, don’t forget my book on democratic workplaces, Leading from the Middle

© Copyright photo and text by John Lubans 2021

SAFETY FIRST

Posted by jlubans on December 06, 2021  •  Leave comment (0)

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For years, many American towns have accommodated citizens who underestimate children’s ability to understand risk, who overestimate the danger in something like monkey bars and who suspect trial lawyers lurk in every playground hedge.
As recently as 2019, a family won a $170,000 settlement because their daughter broke her arm falling off the school playground slide.
Why the award?
Because the slide's incline was “too steep" at 35%, albeit well within the standard 30-45%.
One school got rid of all swings, having declared them as “the most unsafe of … playground equipment."
Apparently, they’d already gotten rid of the merry-go-rounds, see-saws, and monkey bars.
Well, in Europe there’s a movement to reclaim risk in playgrounds.
Horrors!
There’s a reason they are doing this: It goes back to 2004. Research then found that "children who had improved their motor skills in playgrounds at an early age were less likely to suffer accidents as they got older."
The headline of a recent article on this proclaims: “German Insurance Companies Demand Perilous Playgrounds ….”
So, what does this have to do with the workplace?
How much social or intellectual risk are we willing to accept in the office?
How much is any decision we make influenced by the risk of offending one group or another.
I am not talking about discarding safe building and fire codes; I am talking about the risk of speaking up instead of sitting mum when the boss has a bad idea or when, in my case, library clients and staff – even publishers and scholarly societies, actively censor opposing views.
In my most recent blog, I refer to my asking a colleague newly returned from a training workshop “Were you challenged?”
What I meant to ask was, Did you question some of your preset ideas?
Did you change your thinking or was everything you believed simply corroborated?
Was your comfort level made uneasy?
Well, of course not!
The workshop was deliberately designed to be “safe”, to be risk free.
Contrarian ideas were eschewed right at the start. Who wants to be ostracized for heretical views?
There’s not much physical risk in most offices, but there is a different kind of risk versus climbing a tree.
It’s the intellectual risk of going against the established “canon”, the risk of alienating peers by taking the opposing view, the risk of using common sense instead of what is deemed safe and correct.
And, there’s the bizarre - for too many - notion, on some campuses and in some corporations, that people can be trusted to do what is right; they do not need guidance or coercion; they will opt to do what is best.

20130424-JLmakingit.jpeg
Caption: Me, on a DITW, struggling to the top!.

Back in my management days, I often promoted and participated in “Days in the Woods” (DITWs).
These excursions were in pursuit of something similar to what those German insurance companies want: risk competence.
As they say, “If we want children to be prepared for risk, we need to allow them to come into contact with risk.”
Well, the same can be said for adults.
The DITWs were voluntary adventures outside of the office: rock climbing, high ropes, orienteering, river rafting, etc.
Over two years, about 20% of the staff attended - mostly from those units I supervised; some said “No way!” and thought these were inappropriate for office workers.
A few of us reasoned that taking workers out of the usual environment would result in
1. A gain in the individual’s appreciation of his or her strengths through overcoming (or, let’s be frank, failing at) seemingly daunting challenges and
2. The formation of trusting relationships among participants – call it genuine team building - and new, positive, ways of looking at and relating to colleagues.
There is a third outcome: a personal awareness of Nature’s potential for consolation; the forest and river as a place for solace and calm.
There was “perceived risk” in these DITWs – scaling a 50-foot rock outcropping with a rope – however safely secured – is scary for most of us.
In recognition of (and appreciation of) the risk, everyone signed off on a liability waiver agreeing not to sue the organization should they be injured.
Obviously, these waivers did not exempt the organization from doing all it could do to minimize real risk.
Some in the administration -my higher- ups - thought less of the risk to individuals than they believed that this was a waste of precious work time.
Naturally, I was taking a professional risk simply by promoting this type of activity.
What the nay-sayers failed to understand was that just like in those “perilous playgrounds” this was a chance to “recognize (assess) and mititgate risk” to achieve some level of risk competence. Remember that in this organization, like so many others, risk was something to be avoided.
An overly “safe” environment results in tame workers, ones reluctant to protest poor decisions made by the ruling class or to even try new ways of doing something.
Is there a a culprit for overly safe organizations?
HR plays a prominent sanitation role. They are much about risk mitigation – just like those who want to remove dangerous playground equipment, they are ever ready to anticipate what might be, invariably, the worst case.
And, instead of the lurking trial lawyer, for HR it’s the labor lawyer who is looking to sue organizations for un-safe or un-diverse or un-woke working environments.
Yes, safety first always, but with knowledge that risk when understood and dealt with is something that helps us grow.

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20% off Through December 31 2021
No supply-chain issues here! My books are all American, so when you buy my latest book of workplace fables you can expect speedy delivery. Something to keep in mind as the gift giving season arrives.
And, of course, there's no memory chip shortages for printed books :))

And, don’t forget my book on democratic workplaces, Leading from the Middle

© Copyright text and photo by John Lubans 2021