REVITALIZING LABOR

While browsing the Internet on Labor Day, I ran across “Labor’s Dead: Long Live Labor” posted on Global Labor Strategies. The title captures the dissonance I feel contemplating this issue. Having grown up in the 60s in the Flint, Michigan, and having spent much of my adult life working for and with organized labor, my bias is that labor unions can be a great force for good. But I also recognize the need for reform and revitalization.

Labor unions gave us the 40-hour workweek, middle class wages, safer and more humane work environments, healthcare, disability pay, Family Medical Leave Act, due process and many other benefits reaped even by those never associated with unions.

The article states only 8% of the private sector workforce currently belongs to labor unions, (compared to about 33% in 1960). It identifies three contributing trends:

• Capital mobility – companies roaming the world looking for lax laws and low labor costs


• Corporate structures – keeping the core functions and farming out the rest


• Contingent staffing strategies – secondary workers (temps, part-time, etc.) with no job security

Revitalizing labor unions is a daunting task. Saturn, Harley-Davidson and Kaiser Permanente, a health-maintenance organization, are three companies where it is being tried. We consulted with Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Unions for more than seven years supporting a first-of-its-kind National Labor Management Partnership Agreement. This effort is aimed at moving to collaborative managing strategy using Interest-Based Bargaining and partnership.

This meant labor and management were asked to partner in making decisions about the business of healthcare. It was a monumental change for Kaiser and the Coalition both as a business model and a social experiment.

This article has suggestions for revitalizing labor unions:

         Labor's revival in the era of globalization will require a new kind of labor movement, one that not only provides effective representation at the workplace and in the economy but also helps workers represent themselves in relation to the basic questions of society: of how we will address the challenge of global warming; of how we can overcome the polarization of wealth and the persistence of poverty; of how we can build the essential cross border solidarity necessary in the era of globalization.

       “In fact, the issues on which labor’s revival depends are not simply the issues of craft, industry, or employers but are essentially class issues that relate to the role of working people in shaping the direction of the society.”

 Authentic conversations must be at the center of any movement that revitalizes unions. Stating clearly and honestly differing points of view, maintaining goodwill, taking the other side, each side owning their contributions to the difficult issues and seeking common ground for the good of the whole goes a long way to creating something new and vital.

JAMIE

GETTING UNSPUN

We've been seeing a lot of James Carville lately. We watched him doing his TV commentary during the Democratic National Convention coverage last night, and last week we saw him with his wife, Mary Matalin, at a Phoenix Chamber of Commerce luncheon. Their mastery of democrat/republican political spin is unparalleled, and watching them together is something to behold. (In my estimation, Matalin is a little better at it than her husband. I didn’t buy her several reassurances that she could be “objective” as she extolled John McCain and bashed Barak Obama. But maybe that is just my bias.)

Typically we would consider “spinning” a manipulative conversational technique, because it is a way of framing information to get someone to buy into your point of view without revealing that intention. However, as spin is a large part of how Carville and Matalin make a living, I suppose you could characterize their “conversation” as authentic because you know up front that their intention is to spin to influence. It’s in their job description.

Everybody talks about what an odd couple they make, but they’ve been married 15 years so they must be doing something right. Near the end of his talk, Carville revealed one of their secrets by saying he would rather be married to someone who is a thinker and passionate about her point of view than to someone who doesn’t pay attention to what’s going on in the world or have an opinion. I think that is completely cool. And I admire their ability to make it work, because most of the political conversations I have with people on the other side of the aisle typically result in tense silence or verbal assault. My contribution to the difficulty is that I often let passion overwhelm me to the point that I am determined to convince rather than connect. It becomes about winning the point rather than seeking understanding and to be understood. But I am working on changing that, and I'd love to see our society start reaping all the benefits of civil, authentic conversations that help expand our thinking and enhance our decision-making.

We are in the early stages of a project with a few other Berrett-Koehler authors to encourage people to have these conversations and give them some useful conversational skills to make them productive. We'll keep you posted as the project progresses -- we hope to have something tangible ready before the November election.

In the meantime, if you're interested in our suggestions on how to do this, check out this document.

-- JAMIE & MAREN

STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT LAYOFFS

It has become a Sunday morning ritual at the Showkeir home: lounging in bed, reading The New York Times and quaffing at least two steaming cups of coffee. This morning, a headline in the Business section caught Jamie’s attention, "After a Downsizing, how to Motivate?" After reading the article, and he told me: “You should read this.”

I did, and so should you.

I couldn’t help but contrast the advice in this article with the real-life experiences of many of my former newspaper colleagues who have either been laid off, taken buy outs, or are worried about being laid off.)  One example, written by a copy editor at the Chicago Tribune, can be found here on the Maynard Institute’s website. (Disclaimer, Maren used to work for the South-Florida Sun-Sentinel, which is owned by The Tribune Company, back in the days before Sam Zell took over. You can see the way Zell handles some of his conversations here, but note that there is an obscenity.)

Like Warren Bennis, who is quoted in the NYT article, and others, our book addresses  conversational issues such as these. You might be surprised how much better it is for you, your employees, and the business when bad news is delivered honestly, directly, and with compassion.

You can download tips on how to have authentic conversations in these really tough times here. 

-- JAMIE & MAREN

CREATING CULTURES OF ACCOUNTABILITY

“Build a Culture of Accountability: Five Ways to Enhance the Level of Accountability in Your Organizations” (Market Watch, August 18, 2008).

The headline might grab your attention, but the first paragraph is old, tired, hostage-oriented rhetoric: “Holding people accountable for results is the foundation of an organization's performance; it's management 101. Yet it appears there is a gap between knowing (this) and doing (this).”

This may be management 101, but it is an articulation of the problem, not a way to increase accountability.

The idea that we can hold other people accountable is a myth of gigantic proportion, and it is a serious impediment to business success. To think we can hold anyone but ourselves accountable denies a fundamental reality of human existence. Those we think we are “holding accountable” are deciding for themselves what to make of our demands: 

 They choose the appearance of compliance – appearing to be accountable while skating as close to the edge of non-compliance as possible. Outright insubordination may be too risky, but protest is at the heart of their action.