Richard St. Johns interviewed over 500 TEDsters — certainly a group of highly successful people — to find their secrets to success. He came up with Eight Secrets, one of which is to Persist Through CRAP: “Which of course means, Criticism, Rejection, Assholes and Pressure.”
To learn the other seven secrets, check out this short, simple 3+ minute video
Here at Hacking Work, we have dedicated ourselves to helping you question and then change things above you, below you, and all around you. That definitely includes questioning your boss in ways that will yield the best results.
But does questioning your boss AT ALL… EVER… feel like this script from “Kill Bill”? For some, we have heard that this is exactly what it feels like.
Just before midnight December 16, 2002, Amazon sent its business customers an announcement: “A Harvard module on Time Management is available…come and get it.” By the next morning, it was Amazon’s Number Two seller! Important problem, eh?
The HBR module listed the three phases of effective time management: 1) Analysis, 2) Planning, 3) Follow-up and Evaluation. And then provided a handbook for following this rigorous and disciplined approach. In other words, they wanted you to do the stuff you’d be doing if you had the time to manage your time in the first place!
There is a much easier way to gain control over how each day’s 1440 minutes are used. More direct, too. The best time management practice is Just Saying No.
Can You Name Your Five Biggest Time-Wasters?
I can. Since 1992, I’ve been studying work from the worker’s perspective. Countless interviews and surveys later, I can say with confidence that the biggest blackholes in your workday are:
1. Meetings
2. Dealing with communication from others (Used to be mainly via email…Now there are countless channels, media and ways to reach you 24×7)
3. Communicating to others (Ditto on countless ways)
4. Corporate-centered rules, tools and procedures that are designed around the company’s needs, but not yours
5. Your boss micromanaging or undervaluing you
Your circumstances may change the order, but these are probably your biggest time bandits. And they are a lot more than petty annoyances. Consistently, I have found that Blackholes One, Two, and Three cost people like you at least two wasted hours per day! Non-replaceable hours, gone.
Let’s Simplify Time Management: Hey, you! If you don’t walk out of meetings that waste your time…If you don’t hit Delete on at least 75% of the communication coming at you…If you keep going to All-Hands Town Meetings because you’re ‘supposed to’…If you keep checking emails from home and jumping through communication hoops for others because it’s the politically correct thing to do…Then don’t whine about having so little time! Got it?
With three of the top five time-wasters, you are in control of those lost hours. Not your boss. Not your company. Not technology. You.
No matter how crazed you feel, you don’t need new time management tools or more analysis, planning, and evaluating than you’re already doing. You just need to give yourself permission to say ‘No’ more often, and take back control of who you let use your time, and how it is used. That’s it: the big time management secret of this economy.
Basically, there are three kinds of people who are gaining control over how their time is spent:
PushBack Zealots
Either they were pushed to the point of almost breaking (forcing a career or lifestyle change), or a major health or family situation forced a wake-up call. They are now habitual in pushing back, and continually asking, “Why does this deserve my time and attention?”
Insulated Bosses
You know the kind. They have gatekeepers to say no for them, filter their incoming communication, and shape their outgoing communication. Obviously, this approach has major downsides!
The Famous and Powerful
They have other kinds of problems to be sure, but often others must organize their schedules around these people.
If I could influence just one of your decisions this year, it would be this: Become a PushBack Zealot. Become a claim-back-at-least-two-hours-per-day zealot.
That’s time management simplified.
My site and my CV promote me as “today’s foremost expert” on this and that, and the Shameless Testimonials on my site have all sorts of clients claiming I do the speaker’s and consultant’s version of walking on water.
Hardly. At least not in Dallas recently.
I gave a talk in which not only were the evaluation reviews not great, but that apparently, in some of my word choices, it sounded to the client (who was actively taking notes) and to all in the room, like I was dissing the client who paid me to come speak to their group. Talk about the ultimate sin!
Wow. Ow. Big time.
Now, I could chalk it up to a bad day. We all have them. Me too. But there was something in all the feedback that forced me to look inward. I still am. On long bike rides, in the shower, as I’m falling asleep…. Where was I coming from that made me come off that way? What made me choose that tone? What was I trying to say that clearly came off the opposite of what I intended? Is there something bigger here that I need to reevaluate? Will I ever be able to regain the trust of those who invited me? I’ve given back the fee for that day, and taken a few other steps, but what more could I, should I be doing? Big and important questions, all.
Introspection, truly valuable and deep introspection, is hard! It’s so easy to blow off feedback and other people’s observations. But it’s really hard to look deeply into oneself and question what needs to be questioned.
This note is just a journal-type scribble at a personal inflection point. If it’s like the many others I’ve had in my career, hopefully I’ll move through it, taking the lessons I needed to learn with me, and helping me be the best Me I can be.
But sitting right here right now, with only the less-than-thrilling feedback ringing in my soul, and the lessons learned still not there yet… This is tough!
I have been at the top of the Alps in summer...
...and to the top of the Alps in winter (...OK, via train and underground tunnel, but it still counts!) But the question facing me now: What will it take for me to always be at the top of my game?
Nine years ago, I had the privilege of listening to an amazing man tell his story and ask very insightful questions.
While his stories were then 60 years old, if you listened carefully, you could hear all of today’s themes: trust, integrity, transparency, social obligations, human resources, too few resources to accomplish way too much, and more.
He talked about information issues, privacy and hacking when discussing how British mathematicians broke the Nazi wartime code using a captured Enigma machine.
He talked about social obligations, trust and transparency by asking the question: “Churchill and Roosevelt then knew what was happening. Why didn’t they do more?” He wasn’t angry. I don’t think this gentle man ever got angry. His question was more of a lifetime search through confusion and conflicting truths.
He would be told that if these leaders had done more, they would have tipped their hand to Hitler that they had broken the code. So they sat on their hands, and watched.
“Why didn’t they just bomb the tracks?” he asked. “We now know that they knew, at the time, exactly where those tracks led and what happened every day because of them.”
The tracks he spoke of led to places like Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buchenwald, and Dachau.
This gentle man with very deep questions and few answers was Elie Wiesel; Auschwitz Holocaust survivor, writer, teacher, Nobel Peace Laureate, and humanitarian.
I mention this not to compare our discussions to his. There is no comparison.
But, to me, his questions cut through the clutter of the moment. What we’re really talking about is leadership. And tough choices. And doing the right thing when faced with multiple paradoxes, enigmas, and conflicting needs.
Regardless of the technology or challenge or economic needs of the moment, we’re really talking about mapping a journey where there are more questions than answers, and all the answers require character and a will to do things just because they’re the right things to do.
Again, on almost all levels, no comparison. Please don’t take the mental leap I’ve made the wrong way.
Yet, when it comes to looking inside ourselves, and standing up for the rights and welfare of others because it’s the right thing to do: that’s a journey we must all face every day of our lives. Whether we’re tackling something the whole world must never forget, or whether we’re just trying to make it through another day.
Making a difference matters.
This year marks the ten-year anniversary of 9/11. Soon there will be many remembrances and memorials. Here’s one that relates to how leaders lead, and what we all must remember about what really matters at work.
Mid-October 2001, I was flying from Los Angeles to New York. Only a month after the events of September 11. As I boarded the plane, I looked up and down the aisle. Most everyone’s faces told a single story: the tension and fear of flying was still very real.
My seatmate was a very senior executive at a Fortune 100 company. Throughout much of that year, her CEO had been lauded in the press for his ability to execute strategies during tough times. She held a slightly different view. In her words, she was pissed-as-hell at him.
Lots of major changes had occurred at her company. New leaders assumed new positions. So there was a big social and team-building event at corporate headquarters. She really didn’t want to fly to this event at this time. She offered all kinds of alternative solutions; teleconferencing in, arranging for one-on-ones with key players, and more. She was not given a choice: show up in person. One more offsite she had to attend.
At one point, while telling this story to a complete stranger, her eyes grew watery. “What if something happens on this plane?” she sobbed. “I’ve got two daughters — four and six years old. What message am I sending to them? That work is about sucking up and doing what you’re ‘supposed to do,’ regardless of your personal priorities?”
What struck me about our conversation was not the outpouring of emotion. She just blurted what many of us were probably feeling.
What got to me was her feeling of complete loss of control. Here’s this woman at the top of the heap, probably making gazillions of dollars — (she was slumming next to me only because a corporate jet was unavailable). And yet she felt like she couldn’t say “no.” Whoa. If she can’t take control of her life, how would us peons do it?
In the months that followed, we remained email and phone buddies. I did little more than provide a safe zone for venting. But the adversity of that one moment began to reveal her true character as a leader.
She dedicated herself to saying no more often, and having the courage to do less. She relayed how that changed her relationships with those she led. They felt more confident in revealing their true selves, and in changing how they managed others. She also shared how her relationships with her daughters and husband grew more enjoyable, with less baggage hauled back to her family from work.
Since her CEO hadn’t grown at the same pace — he was not thrilled with her newfound freedom to say no more often — she decided to leave.
Getting to know her taught me a leadership principle that will endure for years to come…
The true depth of a leader’s character is fully revealed when that leader must make a choice between doing less and doing more.
A recent USA Today lead article cover story said it all… Workers Antsy as Morale Plunges: But employers think everything is just fine. The details included: Employee loyalty is as low as it’s been in years… and… “Businesses are understandably focused on expenses, but they’re taking their eye off the ball on human capital issues, notably what drives employee satisfaction and loyalty.”
What will happen as the economy bounces back?
Will we get a surge of employees doing the equivalent of “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” and not just quit in record numbers…but when they seek new jobs, will they act in newly empowered ways and form bond with employers that are permanently based on their needs, not just their employer’s needs?
Or will they seek new jobs, and approach their worker/employer relationship in the same way…a way that ensures the current cycle will repeat itself the next time the economy tanks?
What will happen?
FIVE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO COMPLETELY CHANGE HOW WE ALL WORK
image: modis.com
2. Question your leaders, often: “Explain to me again how you’re adding value in how my time and energy are being used?”
3. Question yourself, often. “Am I changing enough to demonstrate that I respect and trust people? How much value do I place on other people’s time.” Time and attention are today’s most precious assets that can never be replaced. Most people in today’s knowledge and service economy get their job done by using a portion of someone else’s life. How well do you do at that? Are you mindful, concerned and respectful about how you use their life to get your work done?
4. Get your fingernails dirty, often: Experience your company’s systems, tools, and processes from the user’s perspective. A guaranteed eye-opener! Our rules, tools and infrastructure are becoming more bossy than our bosses. Today’s infrastructures drive everything. Look at what you are handing off to people to use from their perspective. Change the rules, tools and procedures based on what you learned. And if you’re not empowered to change them, hack them… benevolently, of course.
5. Share Open Source, social media and crowdsourcing measures, tools and philosophies with one main goal: Changing the conversation. Before actual change, usually comes mindset change. And the key driver of mindset change is changing what we all talk about. If everyone starts having conversations like “why isn’t it as easy to get my work done here as it is at home, when I get to use my own smart device, when I use the cloud more freely?,” etc. Change the conversation to “How easy is it for me to do great work?” That one conversation will change everything!
(Here’s one conversation starter: The SimplerWork Index. Download it. Share it. Change the conversation at your company.)
SEE ANY PATTERNS HERE?…
1968
“How do you motivate employees?…Forget praise. Forget punishment. Forget cash. You need to make their jobs more interesting…more enriching…. Job enrichment will not be a one-time proposition, but a continuous management function.”
Frederick Herzberg, Harvard Business Review article
1970
“Management by whose objectives?…Most performance systems don’t take employees’ aspirations into account. Is it any wonder that they fail?”
Harry Levinson, Harvard Business Review article
1974
“They talked, and I listened….They talked about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread. For recognition as well as cash. For astonishment, rather than torpor. In short, for a sort of Monday through Friday life rather than a Monday through Friday void. Perhaps immortality was part of that quest. To be remembered is their wish. I was consistently astonished by the extraordinary dreams of ordinary people. No matter how beguiling the times, no matter how dissembling the official language, those we call ordinary are aware of a sense of personal worth, or more often, the lack of it, in the work they do. As Nora Watson said, most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirit.”
Studs Terkel, Talking about his 1974 book, Working
1999
“Every existing society…takes two things for granted: that organizations outlive workers, and that most people stay put. But…the opposite is true. Knowledge workers outlive organizations, and they are mobile. The need to manage oneself is therefore creating a revolution in human affairs.”
Peter Drucker, Harvard Business Review article
BACK TO BASICS: Wisdom for Today
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana
“Study the past if you would divine the future.”
Confucius
Ten Simple Truths About Simplicity, Doing Less, and Still Accomplishing More
Why these ten truths are so damned important: Much of what you’ve been told and sold about simplicity is a lie — or at best, misinformed. Making things simple isn’t about KISS or dumbing things down or even staying focused on just one or two things.
Making things simple is about power. The simpler something is to understand, the easier it is to push back when things just don’t make sense. The simpler something is to apply, the less someone needs to be managed or needs a manager. The simpler something is to measure at line-level, the more line people can track their own success.
Making things simpler is about making it easier for each individual to make informed, independent, empowered decisions.
Making things simpler is about making implementation easier, not just making it easier to manage and control things. (Which is how most senior execs currently define simplicity.)
Making things simpler is about empathy — always looking at everything from the other person’s
perspective.
* * * * * *
Truth 6: It is no longer acceptable to say that there’s work and there’s life and it’s up to employees to balance the two.
Everything an employer does and asks of you uses a portion of your life.
Truth 7: To build better workplaces, we must first see how the design of work impacts the quality of our lives.
Employers ask you to invest your assets — time, attention, ideas, knowledge, passion, energy, and social networks — to make their companies go. We all must examine how well, or poorly, companies use your assets
Truth 8: R-E-S-P-E-C-T now includes how well, or poorly, your company, your manager, and your teammates use the finite time you have available every day.
(And how well, or poorly, you use theirs!)
Truth 9: We live in the Attention Economy; Every project is about bartering for someone’s time and attention.
Employees may tolerate management’s logic, but act on their own conclusions of what deserves their time and attention.
Truth 10: Plan and manage and change all you want.
Just know that execution travels at the speed of sense-making.
Create less clutter and more clarity, or make help everyone make sense of it faster than the competition, and you win
Ten Simple Truths About Simplicity, Doing Less, and Still Accomplishing More
Why these ten truths are so damned important: Much of what you’ve been told and sold about simplicity is a lie — or at best, misinformed. Making things simple isn’t about KISS or dumbing things down or even staying focused on just one or two things.
Making things simple is about power. The simpler something is to understand, the easier it is to push back when things just don’t make sense. The simpler something is to apply, the less someone needs to be managed or needs a manager. The simpler something is to measure at line-level, the more line people can track their own success.
Making things simpler is about making it easier for each individual to make informed, independent, empowered decisions.
Making things simpler is about making implementation easier, not just making it easier to manage and control things. (Which is how most senior execs currently define simplicity.)
Making things simpler is about empathy — always looking at everything from the other person’s
perspective.
* * * * * *
Truth 1: Simplicity is about power.
(The power to do less of what doesn’t matter and more of what does.)
Which means, like all sources of power throughout human history, it brings out the best and worst in people
Truth 2: Simplicity in the workplace is the disciplined practice of empathy and common sense.
It is based on human nature and common sense, not corporate logic. It is the practice of working backwards from the needs of those doing the work.
Truth 3: There are three basic reasons for doing LESS at work…
• “Work is important, but it is not life. I want to focus on all that life outside of work has to offer.”
• “I want to make a difference. The work I do must matter. So I focus only on what I believe matters.”
• “I want to be the best I can be. So I focus on what excites me and helps me grow.”
Which means:
• Doing less and laziness are not the same thing
• Each individual must decide why s/he wants to do less, and live every day according to that decision
Truth 4: In most of today’s workplaces:
Work = Figuring out what to do with finite time and attention, and infinite information and choices.
Truth 5: You have a lot more control over your workload than you think you do.
It comes down to where and how you choose to focus your time and attention. No one but you controls those things.
Next Installment: Truths 6—10
THE NEW WORK CONTRACT
OUR VIEW, FROM THE WORKFORCE TO LEADERS
DEAR LEADER:
A funny thing happened on the way to the revolution.
Your emphasis on productivity and cost-cutting forced us to change how we think about the war for our talent. For that, we thank you! Your ability to stay focused on the bottom line has inspired us.
We had gotten lazy about controlling our own destiny. We figured if we focused on customers and profits, continuously changed and grew, drank the corporate Kool-aid, and did great work — we’d be the masters of our own fate. Boy, are we glad that the 2008-2010 financial crisis woke us from that fairy tale. Wasn’t a fun way to get it, but get it we did.
So we watched what you do. We studied how you constantly push for greater returns on investment to ensure your own future. Based on what we learned, we have rewritten our work contract. You are not effectively managing the assets we provide, and we’re calling you on it.
Decent pay, appropriate benefits, great culture and leadership — all are givens in this contract. Important… but baseline issues. After that, it gets interesting, and personal.
This new covenant between us cuts to the heart of who owns, controls, and sets the rules for productivity. Specifically, how much value you create for us when you organize our work.
It’s pretty simple, really.
More and more, a big piece of the working capital you leverage to get stuff done is ours. You want us to spend our assets — our time, our attention, our ideas, knowledge, passion, energy, and social networks — on work that you think is important. That means, more and more, we’ve got to think and act like investors.
We are students of the marketplace, have learned quickly, and need to audit your efforts: Are you making productive use of our assets? Would an hour invested in a competitor’s firm provide a better return? Are you creating better communities than we can find outside in the networked world?
We were becoming slaves to your infrastructure: That which was supposed to help us now dictates too much of what we can’t get done. The tools we have outside of work are leapfrogging past what we have at work — your love of lingering bureaucracy, legacy technologies and deeply embedded procedures are killing us.
Throw out much of what you thought you knew about creating a “great place to work.” A new work contract is hitting your shores. We call this new covenant Work 2.0. Our relationship with you must return more value on our working capital.
And here’s the thing: Don’t treat us like investors and we’ll hack our work. We’ll join the underground armies of top performers who are bypassing your sacred structures and breaking all sorts of rules just to get their work done. Like them, we’ll take matters into his own hands to increase our own productivity and achieve better results that way.
Three Laws of Workplace Behavior
Each of these three laws come from the findings of The Jensen Group’s ongoing study, The Search for a Simpler Way. They are undeniable patterns of behavior that occur in most workplaces, and drive how most stuff gets done — regardless of how policies, procedures, and dictates say it should get done.
LAW 3:
Once begun, work follows the path of least resistance.
Most of us manage our daily workload through triage: We avoid or postpone all but the most pressing decisions and tasks. And when everybody is in triage mode, the path of least resistance is to just keep things moving, passing work on to others as quickly as possible, even if that work comes up short in focus or importance. Because the biggest wall of resistance comes from stopping the flow and telling our bosses what they want us to do isn’t focused, important, or valid.
The Big So What: Why should you care?
WHY EVERYONE SHOULD CARE
WHY SENIOR EXECS SHOULD CARE
(Same basic reason for both groups…)
You absolutely must push back on much of the work you are being handed! (See Law 2.)
But the key is to do so in a way that does NOT sound like you want to slow down the project. (Like suggesting rethinking some idea or pointing out something that you know should have been addressed earlier.) That will get you nothing but trouble! Instead, the way to embrace this law, and use it to your advantage, is to constantly clarify immediate, short-term next steps.
Push back by saying something like: “Sure boss, I’ll get all those 4,321 things done. Absolutely! (Ahem.) But which one or two do we need to be focused on this week? Oh…those? Great! Now here’s what I’d do next on those two… does that make sense to you?”
Essentially, you’re pushing back on the stupidity of way too much to do, or too much that’s unfocused, but you’re doing so in a way that your boss (or coworker) won’t be challenged or upset, and in a way that provides you much greater focus.
Remember two key things: 1. You absolutely must push back! Most work that lands on your desk has followed the path of least resistance. 2. Do so in a way that seeks to clarify. Never appear to slow things down!
Three Laws of Workplace Behavior
Each of these three laws come from the findings of The Jensen Group’s ongoing study, The Search for a Simpler Way. They are undeniable patterns of behavior that occur in most workplaces, and drive how most stuff gets done — regardless of how policies, procedures, and dictates say it should get done.
LAW 2:
The Number One behavior in business today is moving to-do’s onto someone else’s plate.
In most cases, this isn’t mean-spirited or malingering. It’s merely an effective way of coping with too many to-do’s, too little time, and too few resources
The Big So What: Why should you care?
WHY EVERYONE SHOULD CARE
The old adage: before most people accept change, they go through stages of denial, grieving, bargaining, questioning, and then understanding. Who’s got time for all that? Nobody! Instead of resisting or bargaining when faced with change as well as too many to-do’s, most people just try to pass them on. (Often, to you!) This means it’s fairly easy to get you to do someone else’s to-do’s — unless you learn how to push back.
The big So What is: Learn to push back. (In ways that don’t create defensiveness.) Or else become a permanent victim of downhill to-do’s. Because everyone around you is mastering the art of parsing and pushing their to-do’s onto your plate. It’s that brutally simple.
WHY SENIOR EXECS SHOULD CARE
(If this is what you want…) There is almost no limit to how much moremoremore you can squeeze out of people, as long as you suppress pushback from below. Their universal behavior of pushing work onto someone else’s plate is like gravity…it’s a constant force that will always keep things moving for you — with little or no effort from you.
Three Laws of Workplace Behavior
Each of these three laws come from the findings of The Jensen Group’s ongoing study, The Search for a Simpler Way. They are undeniable patterns of behavior that occur in most workplaces, and drive how most stuff gets done — regardless of how policies, procedures, and dictates say it should get done.
LAW 1:
Ease of use and reduced-use-of-time are equal to — and sometimes more important than — recognition, compassion, inclusion, rewards, penalties, loyalty, and hierarchy in their ability to drive human behaviors.
The Big So What: Why should you care?
WHY EVERYONE SHOULD CARE
All your teammates are just as overloaded as you are! If you treat people’s time and attention as precious, more people will do what you ask of them more often. That means everything — from how you format your emails, to how you leave voicemails, to how you run your meetings, to how you organize documents and information — should all be designed with the guiding principle that your audience’s time is precious.
Does that sometimes mean a little more work for you? Yes. But think of it this way: The quicker
people do what you ask of them, and the faster it’s clear to them, and the more often they do it exactly as you had hoped, the easier your workload becomes! That’s the simplicity version of enlightened self interest.
WHY SENIOR EXECS SHOULD CARE
If you are user-centered — working backwards from the needs of your employees — you can drive as much change, compliance, and commitment as you currently get with traditional, top-down approaches. (If not more!) That’s the simplicity version of enlightened self interest.
Or do you turn the keys to your life, or the pen, or whatever…to someone else?
Why is it we don’t wake up to this until it’s too late?
Why do we waste so much time on stupid stuff?
Take charge of your life. Period. No excuses. Today. Now.
Why are you still reading? Go. Do. Now.
I spend a lotta time with a lotta companies working on change initiatives. Recently, during a session with a UK firm, one of the attendees said “If I ever did that, I’d be sent to [Insert Co. Name] Jail.”
photo: timetobleed.com
Apparently.
As I thought back, I saw many of my gigs fell under the same dynamic. “What about the risks that I’ll have to explain to my bosses?” was really a masked way of saying “If I ever did that, I’d be sent to [Insert Co. Name] Jail.”
“I could never delete those stupid emails and stop going to those stupid meetings…I won’t look like a team player” was really a toned-down way of saying “If I ever did that, I’d be sent to [Insert Co. Name] Jail.”
“Are you kidding me???…Respond ‘Yes, Tentative’ to meeting requests…And then don’t go? [ADVICE that Bill regularly gives to people as a tactic to get out of stupid meetings, but still look good..] …I could never do that…” was really a self-serving way of saying “If I ever did that, I would have to put myself [Insert Co. Name] Jail.”
Are any of you seeing the same thing? Why are so many of your peers putting themselves into, or worrying about [Insert Co. Name] Jail?
Aren’t there more important things to worry about than that?
We all need heroes. During October 2010, we got many. On Oct 13, the entire world cheered! After more than two months entombed half a mile beneath the Chilean desert, the last of 33 trapped miners was pulled to safety. Not only were the 33 hailed as heroes, so were the hundreds of individuals and firms from around the world you united to save them. Amazing story that many of us will remember forever!
At the time, the entire world was focused on all the ways those behind-the-scenes heroes help. From oil-drillers lending their expertise to how to go get them, to manufacturers of the capsule that brought them out, to iPods sent down fully loaded with Elvis and lots more…even to the psychologists helping them deal with the effects of long-term entrapment. NASA was even called it for its experience in helping crew members deal with long periods of isolation while in outer space.
At least those were the official stories.
Later, after the men were saved, we learned how those official strategies and tools were hacked.
Drugs were smuggled down to them in letters from wives, girlfriends (sometimes both), and friends.
Porn was also smuggled down to them because officials were not dealing with their “greatest need” after air, food and water.
Yes, the official channels of tools, support, discipline and structure were absolutely necessary.
But so were the underground channels…the hacks. Those 33 men made sure to workaround the system to get their needs met.
Maybe there’s something we can all learn from these heroes?
Unions are in the news a lot now. Teachers unions. Public servant unions. All because budgets need slashing and these groups make easy targets.
Let’s be clear and brutally honest: In most industrialized nations, certainly in the U.S., unions are about as relevant and useful as buggy whips and whale oil for heating and lighting. Unions are already dead. Somebody please stick a fork in them…they’re done.
allpostersimages.com
But the core strategy and purpose of unions — collectively bargaining for wages and benefits — simply are outdated models in a knowledge and service work economy.
If somebody really wanted to save unions, they’d have to reinvent them:
• Focusing on the horrible state of work design. Most every process, rule, tool and procedure is corporate- or institution-centered. Nobody is the employee’s advocate in this area
• Putting hard measures and tracking behind Personal Productivity (…which is quite different from Organizational Productivity. Right now everything involved with productivity is tracked from the Organizational perspective — how efficient is the company’s use of ALL its human resources. But no one is measuring all the stupid work, complexities and inefficiencies that are offloaded onto each individual. The need for this is huge!)
• Updating “soft” issues and rights — such as healthcare, benefits and each individual’s freedoms and legal rights — to the 21st century, instead of where they are now in the mid-20th century. For example: Digital footprints. Every employee is creating completely new measurements and ways to be tracked through all of today’s devices. Who is the employee’s advocate on how their own footprint will get used? Currently no one.
I do not have a crystal ball. I do not know if unions should or will survive. But if someone wanted them to, they’d have to reinvent the core mission of unions… watching out for the rights and needs of a digitized, knowledge and service work workforce.
Turn off the whale oil lamp. Turn on the power of today.
It would be bankrupt.
It would be Chapter 11.
It would have huge signs in the window, GOING OUT OF BUSINESS.
Want to challenge that?
Fine.
illus: cs.cmu.edu
How much would you pay for the flow chart that specified who does what in your current work process as well as the gatekeepers to enforce it? (Keeping in mind that you can crowdsource most any of that…for free, or close to it.)
How much would you pay for all that strategic thinking inside the current 2011 company plan to be “boundaryless and innovative, while at the same time cutting costs by seven thousand percent”? (Considering that most strategic plans are overwhelmingly about cutting costs, protecting the company’s ass, and low on TRUE innovation and empowerment.)
That’s what we thought.
If the design of work were a business, it would have gone out of business decades ago.