Missing the Point

As a young production supervisor, one of the myriad training classes I was required to attend was produced by a company called Kepner-Treghoe. I don't know if they are still in business, but I'll never forget that class: problem solving. We were taught how to separate the symptoms we observed from the actual problem. That way we could attack the real issue instead of stomping out fires that never seemed to go out. The concept was simple and straight-forward. We were given the tools needed to go after real problems armed with real solutions. It all made sense and I actually used some of those techniques throughout my career.

It's relatively easy to miss the problem at hand and go off tilting with windmills like some modern day Don Quixote. We do it all the time. And, granted, much of the time it is very difficult to separate the real problem from the symptoms that annoy us.

But once in a while the problem glares at us so intensely it is difficult to miss, whether we've had any formal training or not. Take, for example, the recent events in Las Vegas. The city council in its collective wisdom decided to pass an ordinance barring the feeding of indignants in city parks. Suddenly, it was a criminal act to feed even one hungry person in a Las Vegas city park. An indignant, as defined by the wording of that ordinance was a "person whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to apply for or receive assistance" from the government or under state law.

Interesting, huh? What exactly does that mean? What do people who are "entitled to apply for or receive assistance" look like? Reminds me of an ad I saw once that showed two people standing next to each other. One was dressed in a nice suit, the other had long hair, a tattoo and a full beard. The ad asked us to identify the drug user. Of course, the ad was meant to challenge our pre-conceived notions. The guy in the suit was fingered as the drug abuser.

Maybe the law enforcement officials of Las Vegas should have simply heeded the word their mayor, Oscar Goodman who said, "certain truths are self-evident. You know who's homeless." Well, that cleared things up, right? Talk about pre-conceived prejudices.

Thankfully, just three days before Thanksgiving, a U.S. District Court judge declared the ordinance unconstitutional because it targeted a certain segment of the population.

The point of me telling you all this is to examine the real issue here. Was it feeding the hungry? I don't think so. Las Vegas has long been trying to deal with its homeless population. The problem is not feeding those less fortunate anymore than it is to blame litter in city parks on the same class of people. The problem is that the homeless exist at all.

If we attack anything else, we are only attacking symptoms. And my Kepner-Treghoe training tells me that as long as we go after symptoms, the problem causing them will never go away. I know it is a grand, noble and extremely difficult task to house and employ the homeless. But preventing those who care from providing a meal is not going to make the problem of homeless people in Las Vegas disappear.

I don't have an answer to this problem for Las Vegas or anywhere else. I wish I did. But I will suggest this: if it is too difficult for the Las Vegas city council to identify what really needs fixing, I would be delighted to lend them my dusty old Kepner-Treghoe training manual.

A Matter of Trust

Sometimes we do things just because we’ve always done them the same way and because it’s just too difficult to change. But if we take a moment and examine those things from a different vantage point, the folly glares back at us and, suddenly, it’s not so undesirable to change after all.

For example, there are countless hours spent in countless organizations across the globe developing elaborately worded policies just to make sure people dress properly for work. I’ve seen some of those policies. They spell out every detail from skirt height to whether jeans can have holes in them. These policies attempt to define the difference between “blue” jeans and jean-like materials and even the size and shape of pockets. And those are the ones written for professional people with one or more college degrees.

Now, I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I have learned a few things about people in my years as a manager. Like how 90% of employees really do want to do a good job and would just like us to define what a good job is, then stay out of their way and let them get it done. The other 10% don’t belong in our organizations anyway and we should be trying to ease them out – quickly! The fallacy in what managers end up doing is spending 90% of their time chasing after the ten percenters and virtually no time with the 90% who will work with little or no supervision at all.

A couple of times in my human resources management career, I was lucky enough to work for companies that were havens for progressive thinkers. They applauded outside the box thinking and trusted me enough to try new approaches to managing people.

It was great when one of those companies nodded when I ditched our eight page dress code policy and replaced it with the following two sentences: “We trust our employees to dress appropriately for the type of work they do considering their contact with customers, employees and investors. We reserve the right to question attire we feel is inappropriate and address concerns with those individuals on a case by case basis.” That was it, except of course for my signature.

It worked so well I used the same memo with the same language at two other places I managed, one of which had spent around thirty hours of time over several months wrestling with dress code language. In all that time over three organizations, we only had one person whose attire we had to question. She agreed, went home, changed and that was that. Amazing things can happen when you trust your employees.

My point is, managers should try to adjust their thinking and shift their energies toward the ninety percent of employees who want to get the job done. Spend time with them, develop their skill levels, coach them, expect good things from them, write policies geared toward them, trust them, recognize and reward them. The other ten percent? Maybe you should try sending them to your competitors.

Old Suit

A year ago today, I said goodbye to my brother. His wife tried to wake him for church that morning, but he had already left, having died in his sleep. Ron was 48.

I have to admit, I didn't know Ron very well. I'm not sure many people did. He had a big heart and a warm personality, he laughed heartily and he never lost that child-like wonder and excitement of his youth. In fact, you should have seen him at Christmas. You could give the guy a Bic pen and he would have reacted with unbounded joy. As long as it was something to unwrap.

But he had opportunities along the way he never seemed to fully seize and a desire to learn he never seemed willing enough to allow himself to nurture. He had good jobs and left them, had money sometimes and spent it quickly.

It would have been easy to describe Ron as lacking ambition or self-confidence, but I don't think so now. I think his was a soul that never felt completely at home in this life. Everyone's heard the old chestnut about not feeling comfortable in one's own skin, and I think Ron exemplified the saying. No matter where he looked or what he tried to do, it was like putting on a poorly tailored suit. The sleeves were always too long or the pants cut too high.

I don't think Ron in any way hastened his own death. But neither do I think he feared dying. He was ready when the time came. And for Ron, that time came sooner than later.

Ron's last days on earth were spent with his son and his grandson - fishing. They were happy times for all of them and I'm glad for that. Ron loved fishing, and he loved his son, and he loved his grandson. Maybe, if only for the last week he was here, Ron felt like the old suit fit him.

Hope

On a break from work one day, one of my co-workers (that I'll call Jim) told us about growing up poor in Arkansas. Jim's family owned a small plot of land where they grew a few crops to sell at local markets. Jim's father worked at odd jobs to supplement the small income his family earned from scratching out a living off the land.

All in all, though, Jim said it was a pretty happy childhood. He and his brothers and sisters played, worked, and the family created strong bonds between them. Although they had little in the way of material posessions, it didn't really matter to Jim and his family and they seemed to want for very little.

That went for Jim's parents as well, hardy people who could make due with whatever little they had on hand to build a storage bin or fix the tractor. The only real wish Jim could remember his mother ever expressing was a desire for running water in the kitchen. The old clapboard house was not plumbed for water but they did have a hand pump about fifty feet away that brought up cool, clear water from a deep well. Still, Jim's mother felt her time could be better utilized by working the fields than by walking to and from the hand pump every time she needed to wash dishes or wash the children.

As you can imagine, money was tough to come by and an extravagance like a water spout in the kitchen was hard to justify. But Jim's dad planned to accomodate her some day and probably wished so hard that he could make her dreams come true on the spot. Jim's mom never made a fuss about the lack of water. She most likely just mentioned it a time or two as anyone would about something they wanted.

Things went along the same for many years. Times, financially, for Jim and his family didn't change much, but they were able to get by.

Arkansas lies in a part of the country where storms can be very strong. Pressure systems can sweep across Texas and Oklahoma, combine with copious amounts of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and produce high winds, large hail and crop drenching rains that can sometimes wipe out fortunes in minutes. Many times, small farms like Jim's have a difficult time recovering.

One such storm entered the area where Jim lived and it spawned a tornado. Luckily, Jim's family had an old root cellar near the house and they were all able to make it inside moments before the tornado swept across their farm. Jim can recall the frightening sound of limbs being sheared and tin hitting trees as the tornado's wickedly high winds tore through, nothing but destructon in its wake.

It's an eerie thing about tornadoes. As quickly as the winds pick up to a deafening roar and destroy in minutes what it took years to build, it is just as quickly that a still calm replaces the storm and the sun smiles again.

Fearing the worst for their small place, Jim's dad cautiously swung open the root cellar's door. Everyone gasped when it became immediately obvious that the house was gone. Where it once stood was only a patch of wet dirt and a a pile of tree limbs. Jim looked at his mom and saw fear in her face, some of the smaller children were sobbing. Jim understood then how much they had lost and wondered how they would go on now. Where would they live? Who would take them in?

As a hundred different emotions coursed through Jim, he looked up to his father still standing on the cellar steps. His father slowly turned back to the family, a widening grin stretching across his face. They looked back at him wondering if the loss had jarred his sense of reality.

"It stands," was all Jim's dad said. He pointed to his right.

Everyone clambored up the steps, surrounding the father as they strained to take a look. Sure enough, the house stood. In tact, except for a few broken windows and a large swath of missing roof shingles. Jim had heard about this kind of behavior from tornadoes. He read about a church organ being found atop the rubble of a leveled town miles away from the church were the organ had once been. The organ was unscratched and still playable. It amazed Jim that his house was now not unlike that church organ.

Once everyone had piled outside the cellar, they could see there was work to be done on the farm, clean-up had to begin soon so they could save what they could and rescue the crops. Jim's dad headed to the house and told everyone to wait outside while he went in to make sure it was safe.

He sooned stepped back into the sunlight, another silly grin across his face. Montioning rapidly with his index finger, Jim's dad said, "Come here, all. You just got to see this."

The floors of the old house looked pretty solid, no worse then they had ever been. The walls were all right, too, although the beds and bureaus were wrecked and clothes were scattered about. But it was the kitchen where the father wanted everyone to assemble.

He hugged his wife, smiled at her and said, "Honey, you got what you wanted." The house had landed square on that old hand pump. Jim's mom now had running water. And in the kitchen to boot. Jim went over and worked the pump a few times. A steady stream of cold, sweet water issued. Soon, everyone was smiling. What was once a terrible misfortune now seemed a little brighter.

Someone, I don't know who, once described God as "the world's greatest comedian playing before an audience who is afraid to laugh." We often seem to blame the worst of events - floods, hurricanes, tornadoes - on God, ascribing them to His will. I think those things happen because it's just the way the world and the universe works. A constant state of flux and change, upheaval, creation, destruction and re-creation. It isn't God who sends those events upon us, but rather it is His love and His laughter that get us through them.

A Rose

A small gathering of the Korpella clan took place at my mother's house this Easter weekend. We got the opportunity to visit, we got caught up on each other's lives, and we ate to contentment. Maybe even a little past contentment.

As a result of my daughter's school assignment, our conversation turned to my Grandma Rose, my mother's mother. Grandma died in 1964 when I was still very young, but I have fond memories of the diminutive woman with the hearty laugh that couldn't help but make you laugh, too. I recall her smile to this day, one that was genuine and seemed to never leave her face, even when she was in pain the last days of her life.

One of my warmest memories of Grandma Rose was a Christmas when she was bedridden but still not willing to sit out the season. She loved Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and would gleefully hand over a silver dollar to any of her grandchildren who would sing her the song. I was painfully shy in those days and usually walked around cowboy hat hung low over my eyes, head down and hands in my pockets - about as withdrawn from the world as an eight year old boy could get. I was far too shy to sing in front of anyone, even my own grandmother, so Grandma made a rule change for me. I only needed to say Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to collect my silver dollar. Even then, it took all the courage I could muster to say the words, but I did say them and I did get a silver dollar. I got several of them that Christmas, and I still have every one of them today.

Grandma Rose was also a very brave person. At the tender age of fifteen, when most young children are facing the specter of entering junior high school with all its trappings, Grandma Rose set out alone from her home in Austria to a new beginning in America. She sought and found her sister, who had settled in Ohio, then moved on to Chicago where she met Andrew, an immigrant himself, and the man who would become my grandfather.

I never got a chance to meet him. He died of asthma long before I was born. But he and Grandma Rose had seven children, although two of them died in childhood. With the help of the oldest children, Grandma was able to raise and provide for her family after Grandpa's passing.

Grandma Rose spoke little English, but we always understood her. I think her major purpose in life was to spoil her grandchildren and she was masteful at her art. She loved to watch an old television show called Queen for a Day, although it came out as Queen for To-Day when Grandma said it. I imagine her wishing she could live one day of her life like that, like a queen. But her life was probably a daily struggle of making ends meet, cooking meals, doing laundry and otherwise going about what most would consider a rather routine existance after she made it to the United States.

But routine or not, Grandma Rose knew how to laugh. It was her laughter I liked best about her. Grandma's eyes would tear up and her whole body would shake when she laughed. And everything made her laugh. This was a woman who valued humor in any form, any shape.

History is not likely to recall my Grandma Rose, but I remember. Anyone whose life she touched will remember her in some way. And even those who didn't know Grandma remember someone like her. Someone who left a deep and lasting impression on their lives forever. We're all like that, you know. We touch and impact lives when we don't even realize it. Everyone we have ever met, seen, spoken with or known in our lives is forever different in some way - small or big - because of us, as we are because of them.

So hat's off to you, Grandma, a simple tribute to a wonderful woman who lived on this Earth for a mere sixty-seven years but was able to touch lives well beyond her short stay with us.

New York, New York

Many years ago, when I was a shift supervisor at a manufacturing company, a group of us headed to the local watering hole for an after-the-work-week drink. We were assigned to evening shift, so we got to the bar around twelve-thirty in the morning, which feels just like five-thirty in the afternoon to anyone on nights. And, like the song says, “It’s five o’clock somewhere” so why not partake?

The bar was packed with the typical Friday night crowd and the din of a hundred different but simultaneous conversations flooded the place. It was so loud, my colleagues and I strained to hear our own conversation. The juke box was playing something, but who could hear over all that noise?

Until Frank Sinatra’s version of “New York, New York” hit the airwaves. This all occurred in Connecticut, which is close to New York, and a small enough state to be considered a New York suburb. Whatever the alliance, a few people started to sing along. Then a few more, and then, more still. All conversations ceased and soon the whole bar was singing along to every verse of “New York, New York” including my friends, and even me. We were all especially vigorous on the chorus. Or maybe it just seemed that way because, even if you don’t know the rest of words, anybody can belt out the name of the song.

No matter what our backgrounds, no matter what our cares, our worries, our own individual triumphs or failures, for three minutes and twenty-eight seconds we were simply one very loud voice in that bar that night. Singing along with Old Blue Eyes just as if we were the best of friends.

Once the song ended, the cacophony started in again as if nothing had happened. Now I know that what went on in the bar that night was no different than what occurs in countless other places all across the world on any given night. We start out as individuals, find some common thread to unite us, then promptly forget all about it.

Lawn Care

I once read that a weed is simply a flower whose beauty has not yet been realized. If that's true, then my front yard is the most misunderstood piece of property in the area.

In my zeal for curb appeal, I've tried most every brand of commercial fertilizer and weed inhibitor approved for residential use. I even thought about renting a crop duster once, but that seemed like overkill. I've reseeded, overseeded, watered and nurtured my lawn (lawn being liberally defined here) to try and establish more understood grasses that would stifle the growth of those pesky weeds. Instead, I got more pesky weeds.

After a decade of unsuccessful lawn care, I finally realized I had fought the encroachment of misunderstood flowers for far too long. A couple of years ago, I stopped buying fertilizers and grass seed in favor of a more rustic frame for the front of my house. And the results have been phenomenal.

If I look outside right now, my lawn is a patchwork quilt of purple henbit and yellow dandelions, which is great, really, because it's almost Easter and purple and yellow are seasonal colors. I've got some green mixed in there, too - some of it in the form of real grass - so the whole front yard is like peering into the bottom of a five thousand square foot Easter basket. Not everyone in my neighborhood is lucky enough to have that.

Plus, the money I've diverted from the purchase of lawn care chemicals was invested - in a new set of golf clubs. And the time freed up from playing in my lawn is now better spent playing on fairway lawns and smooth greens.

I've come to believe we should look at our lawns with the childlike wonder we brought into this world. Children know the benefits of a dandelion. They appreciate the beauty of the flower, not the weed. A child will pluck a few and bring them to her mother as a present from nature. Or they'll take great joy in blowing the white dandelion seeds to the winds, thereby propagating the species and ensuring there are many more dandelion delights in the days ahead.

Yep, I take immense pride in knowing I am ahead of my time. I'm taking that childlike wonder of my youth and realizing the beauty of the flowers growing among the sparse grasses of my front yard. What wonder, what contentment, what freedom.

I wonder if my neighbors look at it the same way?