A Lesson and a Question
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Early on Saturday morning, the father of a good friend died. The family made arrangements for the graveside ceremony on Sunday. A memorial service was scheduled for later in the week.
As the news spread among friends and loved ones, something magical happened. Phone calls, text messages and some emails whisked back and forth. A plan began to emerge about how to handle details.
One relative offered her home for a reception following the service. Other friends and relatives discussed what would be needed. Different people took different tasks. One was taking food to the family so no one there would have to cook.
By the next afternoon everything had been arranged. The work was done.
I've seen this happen dozens of times. But this time I noticed that there was no "leader" for the project.
There were no job descriptions either. The people who participated volunteered. No one was assigned.
There was no formal process. There were only a few simple rules. Everything needed to be ready when the graveside ceremony ended. Food needed to be the kind you could pick up with your hands.
As we drove home, I wondered: How many things we do at work can be handled this way?
Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.
Categories: Great Working Environment, Leadership
Tags: Great Working Environment Leadership
A few years ago, a scary wildfire started around Waycross, GA (http://wiregrassfamilies.com/wildfire2/).
Many firefighters and volunteer firefighters from neighboring cities came to help fight the flames. Volunteers quickly identified ways to help: donating supplies (fresh socks, chap sticks, sunscreen, toothbrushes, candy, mosquito repellent...) and helping out around the base camp (washing laundry, setting up cots, making coffee and iced tea, handing out donations...).
But after a while, a new pattern emerged: There was an abundance of item A, but a shortage of item B. An abundance of volunteers in the afternoon, but a shortage during the morning hours. A few local church groups took over to lead the process and make it more efficient.
In my experience as a volunteer, the ad hoc style of helping out is very rewarding, but it burns me out quickly if I try to do it for an extended period of time (I think the same would happen at work).
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Thanks for the example and the observation, Anna. I think that too much of the commentary on "management" discounts that organizing function that makes things work more smoothly. Without it, you have to put a lot of energy into figuring out what to do when and what to do first.
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Another leadership story from everyday life - great. This approach would work for lots of things if bosses would become leaders and not try to control everything.
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Hi Dick. Thanks for coming by and commenting. I think the big challenge is knowing where you need to specify in detail and in advance and where it's best not to.
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I think it is an example of why vision is important. When people share a vision and agreement that the vision is what they all most want to work toward they can accomplish a great deal without a bunch of formal stuff getting in the way.
At work too often people have see so many Dilbert bosses they start to give up and not act sensibly to do whatever is best but instead wait for someone to tell them what specific thing they will be judged on and then just try to do that. This response is obviously way oversimplified.
But when people have been convinced doing what is right, isn't what they are suppose to do, but instead doing what Dilbert boss wants them to do. Then if you don't have all sorts of Dilbert boss direction going on people are reluctant to use their judgement.
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I think you're right about the vision, John. Common vision makes a lot of good things possible. As for Dilbert bosses and the willingness to use judgment, I suspect that the situation is even more dire than you describe. Dilbert bosses often penalize the use of judgment. When that happens, people state keeping their judgment to themselves. As Mark Twain so eloquently put it: "A cat that sits on a hot stove will never sit on a hot stove again. But it will never sit on a cold stove, either."
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People are at their best when they feel needed. Also, it sounds a bit like Wikipedia. I'd like to see the volunteer model more in the workplace because it allows people to step up rather than waiting for an engraved invitation.
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Thanks, Laura. I think Wikipedia is a bit different since it's set up as a volunteer project. But the "volunteer model" is used by some companies for some parts of their operation today. WL Gore, Semco, and 3M are all using it where the presence or lack of volunteers is taken as a vote on the importance or potential of a project or activity.
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Great story, Wally. I think situations with great teamwork like this often crop up when egos are forced to take a back seat. In this case, everyone was just focusing their efforts to help out a lost friend or family member, and there was really nothing personal to gain out of it. It does seem to be hard to replicate in a business environment, but it's worth thinking about.
Scott
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Good point, Scott. It's hard to have teamwork when one person "needs" to be important. Thanks for commenting.
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It's strange how lessons such as this appear at the most unlikely time. But it is beautiful when we become aware of the lesson. I've been an observer and a participant in this type of situation. Watching people come together and accomplish things with great efficiency allows you to see people at their true best. Recently, I was in a situation in which our leader suddenly lost her voice before a charity event in which she had planned to give a speech and run the information table. We each equally took over a task. Since we all cared for the person, we automatically felt the need to help her and stopped thinking about our needs. The urgency and the cause pushed us to work at our best.
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Thanks for sharing that example, Jennifer. You're right. It is a beautiful thing.
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I've had to attend quite a few Filipino wakes. They all seemed to be organized without leaders. They are similar, so there is a template, a tradition which would organize the efforts.
In the software startups I've worked in, most of us just do what we did the last time. That reduces the management overhead. Hand me an MRD, and my dependencies are met. I can start. Then, we evolve to daily builds, so the next phase of my effort begins. Having done this hundreds of times, it gets done on schedule. I've demonstrated my commitment to meeting the schedule, so I'm not asked to status. I've demonstrated the quality of my deliverables and and my approach. I've established the relationships and feedback paths that eliminate hurdles when I need something done that I cannot do. It's all pretty routine and free of managerial effort.
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Thanks for sharing that example, David.
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