Leading from the Middle

“A Man caught a Jackdaw and tied a piece of string to one of its legs, and then gave it to his children for a pet. But the Jackdaw didn't at all like having to live with people; so, after a while, when he seemed to have become fairly tame and they didn't watch him so closely, he slipped away and flew back to his old haunts. Unfortunately, the string was still on his leg, and before long it got entangled in the branches of a tree and the Jackdaw couldn't get free, try as he would. He saw it was all up with him, and cried in despair, ‘Alas, in gaining my freedom I have lost my life.’”

“No strings attached”, the saying goes. When we set ourselves free, be it from a despotic workplace, a sour relationship, or a totalitarian government, do we lose the “strings” that entangle and imprison us? Or are we like the jackdaw, doomed by the past?
I asked in a previous blog,
“How does any organization moving from dysfunction into effectiveness, continue its progress?”
What does “of the people, for the people, by the people” mean up close and personal? Should we qualify the phrase with “sometimes”, as appears to be the case when you consider the low voter turnout in some democracies?
Or should we adjust freedom’s tocsin to “of the organization, for the organization, by the people?” Doing so, we revert to the sly, old model, with a few punctiliously telling the many how to behave.
For humans – in and out of the workplace - it appears that it is far easier to be told what to do than to figure it out for yourself. Yet, most of us know it is far more rewarding to figure out a problem on your own. (Which reminds me, as a little kid in a post WWII German refugee camp, I acquired the nickname, “Japits” a merging of “Jānis yourself” in Latvian because I was forever claiming my independence from adult supervision and advice: “I’ll do it myself!” That may explain some bloopers in my personal history!)
So, there’s the dilemma. How much do you want to invest in your newly gained freedom – untangling the jackdaw’s knotted string - vs. giving up your freedom?

*Source: AESOP'S FABLES A NEW TRANSLATION BY V. S. VERNON JONES WITH AN INTRODUCTION By G. K. CHESTERTON AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR RACKHAM (Publisher: London: W. Heinemann; New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1912). Available at Gutenberg.

Leading from the Middle Library of the Week. Henderson State University
Huie Library, Arkadelphia, AR United States

© John Lubans 2015

 

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