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Are You a Jackass or a Progressive?

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There is a widespread belief that the best way to manage a donkey is through a combination of stick and carrot.

As long as the right ‘extrinsic motivation’ is applied at the right time, at the right end, there is a chance that the donkey will do what we want it to.

  • Unless of course the donkey has had enough carrots for one day
  • Or becomes so accustomed to the stick that it is no longer effective
  • Or the donkey sees it self interest lying elsewhere – enough carrots for one day – I am heading off for the nettles….

Then the donkey is very likely to go into stubborn mode.

We might try bigger sticks and juicier carrots, but the donkey is not for turning.  ‘Jackass Management’ no longer works.

Even when it is working as well as it can, the best we get from ‘Jackass Management’ is a situation where the donkey does the bare minimum neccesary to pursue the carrot and avoid the stick.

Yet ‘Jackass Management’ is still incredibly prevalent.  Sub-conscious perhaps – but prevalent.  Our own self image as ‘an enlightened and person centred manager’ may prevent us from seeing our own jackass tactics.  But we cannot escape the mediocrity that our ‘Jackass’ Management creates.

The alternative is a management that is based on a genuine relationship in which both parties self interests are clearly negotiated and mutually pursued. Management in which both parties strive to give us much as they can – because they believe that is in their own self interest – rather than doing as little as they can to get the carrot and avoid the stick.

I call this Progressive Management.

Making the shift from ‘Jackass Management’ to Progressive Management is not difficult.  It does take some time, a little technique and a lot of courage.  It leads to:

  • significant productivity improvements
  • increased well being
  • reduced workplace stress
  • more creativity and innovation
  • better employee engagement
  • lower costs and
  • happier customers.

It requires us to see our job as helping other people to do great work rather than as donkeys to be manipulated to our will.

So why don’t more people make the transition from ‘Jackass’ to ‘Progressive’?  Because they are too busy wielding sticks and carrots to take the time.

If you would like to learn how to be a Progressive Manager then please visit www.progressivemanagersnetwork.co.uk

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Starting with People not Enterprise Targets

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Many programmes designed to promote more enterprising cultures make the same mistake.

Because they are funded to create business starts and VAT registrations they use this as their starting point.  They lose track of the fact that they are being funded specifically because the communities that they serve have had a historically low level of start ups.  For sure they will find some people who respond to the offer of help to start a business.  And they can help this tiny minority to make progress.  But they would almost certainly have done it any way.  These are the enterprising exceptions.

For many in the community a lot more work will be required to build trusting relationships, nurture confidence and develop aspirations – based on the clients context and their perceptions of what constitutes progress – not the policy goals of the funders.  We have to engage our clients where they are in the enterprising journey – and not where we would would like them to be to fit neatly with our policy goals and our carefully designed programmes.

So instead of asking ‘Have You Got a Fantastic Business Idea’ we should be asking:

  • ‘Do you feel that there should be more to life?’ or
  • ‘Frustrated? Angry? Want things to Change for the Better?’
  • ‘Feel That You are Wasting Your Life Away?’

People who answer ‘Yes’ to these questions may not yet be ready to start a business – but they are likely to be open to support to become more enterprising.

And if we can start them on an enterprising journey, who knows where they might end up?

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Why Do I Work In Enterprise?

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‘We pass through this world but once.

Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life,

Few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive,

Or even to hope,

By a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within.’

Stephen Jay Gould

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John Hegley – Enterprise Poet!

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The Price of Art in Luton

On the bridge approaching the railway,
the man was begging.
I said draw me a dog
and I’ll give you a quid.
So I gave him some paper
and he did.
And I said, there you go, mate,
you can make money out of art!
Will you sign it?
As I handed him the one pound thirty-odd
I had in my pocket,
he informed me that the signed ones were a fiver.

More John Hegley here and here.

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