Yesterday afternoon taking the dog for a walk in our local park (it may not always be an exciting life but it is mine!) I noticed a father and son playing cricket.
The father was batting and knocking the son’s bowling all over the shop. Aha, I thought. This is a metaphor for the way many organisations are managed. Classic Parent/Child relationships – Parent/Manager gets to do the fun bit and Child/Employee gets to do all the running around and hard work, so Parent/Manager can look good, show off and generally demonstrate the management mantra that is WIFM (What’s in it for me).
After doing a bit of clean up work on the dog’s activities, I looked up and saw the cricketers again. Blow me, if they hadn’t swapped around and now the son was knocking the father’s bowling all around the park!
And that seems to demonstrate another (and potentially more effective management mantra – WIFU (What’s in it for us).
I also reminded myself of the danger of selecting only the evidence that supports our thinking – of what we pay attention to. And once again committed to pay more attention to what I pay attention to.
