Sunday, September 16, 2007

Analogy of a worker sitting on a stool....

My apologies for the lack of activity recently. Guess I was too caught up with work. But there was something interesting about our lives that I learnt and would like to share....

In an ideal working world, a stool would have 4 legs and when we sit on it, there is always stability. Whenever it comes to the crunch, management may say that we do not need 3 legs and therefore, we have no choice but to comply... and so we continue working with our 3-legged stool albeit less stable. Sometimes, there will be situations whereby we need to tighten our belts more... and the inevitable happens.

Management will always look at people on the ground from their own lenses, i.e. they won't even ask about our difficulties and make assumptions that doesn't reflect the actual situation. When they see that we can manage well with our new 3-legged stool, they may even take away one more and ask us to live with it... Now the situation becomes less stable and secure (with 2 legs), so we enlist the help of others to work hand-in-hand and keep us afloat. All management does is to tell us to manage.

As time passes, management will opin that we can manage well with our current "2-legged stool" and may even wonder why is there a need to put the legs back in place since the situation on the ground can be managed with 2 legs, even if there is a chance to put things right. Eventually, we will even forget that we had 4 to start with.

The bottomline is:

1. We work always to make this happen - even when our belts are tightened and no matter how painful - "Just do it, make it happen".

2. If things get uncomfortable, don't forget to enlist the help of others.

3. (For management level) Don't just make "management decisions". Don't always look at things from your boardroom perspective, take some time to walk through your organisation and understand things better. It will help in making decisions that benefit all concerned. If there is a need to tighten our belts, everyone should take the cut, inclusive of management.

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