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.

Only crap organizations use “secret shoppers”

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I'm mad, because somebody whose life-earned craftsmanship I admire—and whether you're a car mechanic or a mob hit man or a cod fishmerman, I admire lifelong craftsmanship over most other things—was spied upon in a kind of "secret shopper" program.

And, by this hired minderbinder with boxes to check and letters to circle, found wanting.

And the thing is, my friend knew it was a secret shopper all along.

How?

Didn't I just tell you this person was a lifelong craftsman?

(Not to mention an all-out hustler and getter of results.)

Yet, my friend's art didn't match the minderbinder's boxes and the letters.

So the score came back, 55/100.

What does that score mean, you ask?

Nothing, of course!

I've always casually loathed the idea of secret shoppers—in general, spying is only slightly more morally cool than torture—but it took until now for me to form the following angry thesis:

If your organization is so shoddily managed that it can't  trust its managers to know whether or not the employees are doing good work … and can't find civilized, honest ways to do intelligent spot-checks … then your organization desperately deserves to be toppled by a competitor who can figure out how to profit from truly skilled human beings.

I realize we live in a country full of such organizations. But just because they're common, doesn't mean they're not crap.

Somebody, tell me I'm wrong about this.