Miss Management: It’s not cheating if you win

December 14, 2009 | Galynn Nordstrom

Years ago again, when I worked for that small idiosyncratic publishing company in the midwest (see “Miss Management: Your enjoyment is anticipated, and will be enforced,” Nov. 17th), our upper management took the precepts of our flagship publication Training magazine very much to heart, and brought in a lot of consultants to teach us various lessons in efficiency, morale-building, teamwork, creativity … you name it, they found a consultant for it, paid him (comparatively) lavishly, ordered us all box lunches from the nearby Brothers deli, and rented a room in a nearby hotel for us to be free of workday constraints and temptations as we took in our business lessons and emerged as increasingly capable and motivated employees.

Two day-long sessions I remember with particular fondness. One was focused on strategic decision-making, and broke us into teams of administrative staff, creative staff and management as they sketched that morning’s scenario: a plane crash in the desert, a list of resources and supplies, and an assignment to do what we needed to do, with what we had, to survive. The creative team, spurred perhaps by my foggy childhood recollections of the television show “Sky King,” immediately searched the (dead) pilot’s jacket pockets for candy bars, draped the parachutes over the plane’s wing for shade, applied the vodka to our skin to cool ourselves, and waited for rescue. We survived. The management team, spurred by the need for action, hiked off determinedly into the desert, and perished. There was great glee on the fourth floor of Lakewood Publications the next day, which may or may not have been the result anticipated by the consultant, or the management.

A second session focused on creativity, and gave us a sheet of paper and the instructions to create an airplane that would travel the greatest distance. Some folded the paper into intricate aerodynamic folds; some crumpled it into a tight ball and tossed it as hard as they could. A few of us editors conferred for a while, then took our unfolded sheets of paper up to the beginning line and carried them a few feet beyond where the other entries had landed. When asked by the facilitator what we were doing, we replied “we gave ours engines.”*

This all came back to me as I was reading a synopsis of “The Edge Report: A Preview of the Post-Recession Job Market,” a publication based on an annual survey conducted by Robert Half Intl. and CareerBuilder. Among the questions asked of employers was: “Aside from having the basic job qualifications, which of the following characteristics best describe the ideal new hire?” The answers: A multitasker who thrives on a variety of projects (36%); a go-getter who takes initiative (31%); a creative thinker who solves problems (21%); followed by “other” (7%) and “don’t know” (5%). The report posits that managers have new appreciation of the value of employees who can take on multiple responsibilities during lean times, and also help companies grow as the economy recovers.

Of course, those results also put “go-getters” ahead of “creative thinkers”—and maybe are one indication that those respondents are risking another trek into the desert. Does this mean that the answer is for all businesses to hire more editors? No; well, yes, but what we really seem to need is a system of employment that balances the needs and expectations of management with those of their workforce, while creating a workplace that fosters innovation—something that the experts are telling us we’re losing.

*We were declared the winners of this exercise but became objects of disgust to our co-workers for at least a month, despite liberal applications of chocolate.

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