At Home or in the Office

      The periodic eruption over working at home versus showing up at the office misses an important point. Does one of the alternatives help the person do a better job? 

     The home-vs-office argument is often seen as a contest between a boss who needs reassurance that work is actually being done and an employee who wants the option of sleeping in or goofing off. 

     Let's back off a bit and start over. What is the job, anyway? And what, therefore. is how it should be done? 

    Exploration of that side of the situation reveals how well the two parties grasp what the job is supposed to accomplish, and therefore what the worker bee should be doing to accomplish it. Miscommunication -- or lack of communication -- between the parties routinely muddies this vital issue. 

     In all my years as a manager I didn't realize the one element that clearly marks employee effectiveness, and therefore is the top marker for good management.     Results.

     If an employee regularly produces outcomes that meet requirements such as return on investment, organizational standards and teamwork expectations, that person is doing a good job. 

     When those outcomes can be achieved by workers scattered in various homes rather then sitting in a central office, the situation shines a light on the managers of those employees. 

     Have they organized the best possible structures and practices for maximum value in supporting the work of good employee? Does their managing behavior make best use of the employee' work through the structures and practices they have set up?

     In all my years as a management consultant, I sometimes wondered at the extent of incompetence I encountered in the ranks of management. 

     People often were promoted to management positions because of seniority or friendship or a superficial appearance of competence based on educational record. If you had earned a master's degree in business, you must know stuff.

You and Your Climate

     Are you concerned about climate change?

      . . . So am I.

     Have you done anything about it?

      . . . Neither have I. 

     My general attitude toward the concept of climate is that it would be best if there were no human race. There are maybe 8.5 billion of us humans running around the globe right now, every one of us using up oxygen and emitting pollutants with every breath. And all of us are breathing all the time. 

     And we billions of humans are burning fossil fuels every day in our cars, trucks, furnaces, etc. Little of this was happening a few hundred years ago, There were mostly trees contributing to cleaner air and other generally favorable stuff going on.

     Not so any more. Our situation is one bristling with ominous possibilities.

     We the people are so pervasive, and the climate is so enormous, that the situation is infinitely beyond the ability of any one of us -- or any hundred, thousand or million of us -- to do much about it.

     That is not to say we can't do anything about it. How many of us 8.5 billion people would it take to collectively control-reduce-eliminate fossil fuel combustion? What if we really, REALLY decided to change our recreation and transportation choices, our home heating systems and other pollution-generating activities? 

     The alternatives -- walking, bicycling, reducing, substituting -- are available now, and others could be developed if we put our minds to it.

     Individuals can make relatively minor lifestyle changes without much inconvenience. We have to have reasons to do so. and there are such reasons. The challenge is to make those reasons real and effective to enough people.

     As with all matters human, the initiation of individual change comes with dialogue. If we talk enough to each other about the benefits of a particular change, the avoidance of a particular developing disaster, habit change seems almost automatic.

     So the effective action is the individual decision to raise and share thoughts and information about the conditions and actions we can do something about. That action is well within the perimeter of possibility for the individual human being. If we talk about it, we'll do it.

     Let's give it a go. Pick a couple of occasions today to share and seek individual thoughts about what people are doing, and what they can do. about their personal envelopes of climate. And tell 'em what you think.

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New Year, Old Story. Time for a Project Plan

      In mid-January of this year, I wrote this:

     Well, it's January, so let's get at our annual Personal Improvement routine. 

     We're halfway through the month, so the first phase of our New Year's Resolution process is history. That phase is the careful listing of our shiny good intentions. 

     For many of us, maybe most of us, the following phase is the rapid fade of it all. The new me may never materialize at all. Depressing.

     Today is June 4, and this is what I've got to say to myself: I told you so.