Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

‘Internal franchisees’: You heard it here first

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In the 1990s it was called empowerment. In the 2000s "intrapreneur" was the term for a workaday grunt who nevertheless acted like an owner without an ownership stake in the company.

And if author Martin O'Neil has his way, in the 2010s the term will be "internal franchisees," which he defines as people who "take personal ownership of the company's success as their own."

You can have O'Neil's book about "How Your Business Will Prosper When Your Employees Act Like Owners." I'd rather read a book on "Why On Earth Owners Would Think They Can Get Employees to Act Like Owners Without Offering Either a Piece of the Action or a Modicum of Job Security in Return."

***

At the frigid pro-labor demonstration in Madison last month, we took a break to warm up in a coffee shop just around the corner from the Capitol building. Paying the good-natured barrista for my coffee, I cheerfully theorized, "I bet all these demonstrations are great for you guys."

"Yeah, it's been going on for two weeks," she said. "But the owners see most of the money. For us, it's mostly just an extra pain."

Is she wrong to say that?

Or am I wrong for blithely expecting her—especially in the context of a union demonstration—to put on the Stepford Wife show, "Oh, yes, sir, we're all just so happy to have all these customers all the time!" when what it means for her is a few extra dollars a day in tips, and a ton of extra work?

***

If owners want employees to act like owners, they'd better find a way to make them feel like owners. How? That's up to the owners.

Glue-sniffers aren’t what makes Southwest Southwest

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As all fliers know, the employees of most airlines are a vortex of three hatreds:

Hatred of customers (for always being "right" while simultaneously being such Mr. and Mrs. Magoos) … hatred of their fellow employees (for being surly, uncooperative union goons just like they are) … and hatred of themselves (for being stuck in this once-glorious, now grim industry).

And the consequences of this perfect lather of loathing? Just the latest example came during Super Bowl Sunday, when United Airlines dispatchers refused to update pilots on the score of the game, so passengers had to fly in senseless ignorance.

The very same weekend I happened to be flying Southwest Airlines to and from New Orleans, and I witnessed the following small miracle:

A Southwest customer-service agent was at working the desk at a gate, and she was not having a very good day. (Not all Southwest employees are sniffing glue throughout their shift.)

She was being curt with customers, and when they left after asking their dumb questions, she rolled her eyes.

I stood nearby reading a book, as a couple of Southwest pilots walked up. One of them observed that it looked like she was "stuck" there behind that desk. Without a smile, she allowed that she was. He asked her if he might get her something to drink. Again unsmilingly, she said that might be OK.

"What'll you have?" he asked.

"Where are you going?" she asked, not wanting to put him out because putting him out would require expressing gratitude.

"Where do you want me to go?" he insisted, at which point she said she wouldn't mind having an iced tea, sweet with lemon, from the McDonald's, a little ways up the concourse.

"You got it," he said, and walked off to get the tea.

And she smiled, just a little.

And I smiled, a lot.

That's always been the thing about Southwest that impressed me more than the bouncy, jouncy, Kool-Aid drinking would-be comics in the workforce. It's the real, honest, regular Southwest people who are working a repetitive, high-stress job, and doing so with humanity, with emotional intelligence and, albeit sometimes grudging, a sense of humor.

The idea of a Southwest employee refusing to tell a pilot the score of a football game is preposterous. It's just about exactly as preposterous as a United pilot coaxing a sour gate agent into letting him buy her a sweet iced tea.

On Labor Day, ‘Can’t Take No More’

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In the U.S. we live in an era that discounts the very notion of "labor." Many of us disdain labor unions, believe all the legitimate labor rights have all been long won, and see labor regulations solely as hurdles that slow organizations down.

But this 30-year-old film, "Can't Take No More," tells the harrowing history of the development of labor laws and safety regulations, and the organizations created to enforce them.

Studs Terkel narrates this film. Who will narrate the one I'm sure we're going to see some decades from now, about how after a long fight against bloodless corporate self-interest, Americans finally won what will seem then as the obvious human right to quality health care?