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.

What I think I learned in Madison on Saturday

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On Saturday, Cristie and Scout and I drove three hours northwest to Madison, Wis. to see what 70,000 angry cheeseheads looked like.

The first surprise was, they didn't look angry.

My Flip captured the spirit of the day before it died of exposure—therefore missing the weird and wondrous atmosphere inside the capitol rotunda on Saturday night—but here are some things I learned, that you might not know from watching the news.

1. You can judge their wit by the signs I showed in the video, but Wisconsin liberals are the friendliest damned people in the world. You think to yourself: Whatever these people want, I'm for.

2. No matter what the content of the signs they're carrying, people at protests are generally on their best behavior and in good humor. (I heard that Tea Party protests were pleasant to be around.) This is because people simply feel good to be together in an effort to improve things.

3. Whatever's happening here is formidable. Scout and Cristie in bed, I talked in the hotel bar with two college-age young protesters, both of whom had spent a dozen nights sleeping on the marble floor of the cacophanous rotunda. (Think about that.)

They were taking a night off for pizza and a soft bed for our hotel, but one of them was quitting college to spend the rest of the semester at this. He was there with his dad, who beamed with pride at his son's commitment.

The other, a woman, seemed just as committed. She'd been getting up off the capitol floor and going to work for two weeks. She said she sees Madison as the epicenter of a national reclamation of workers' rights.

"We're speaking for the rest of the country," she said.

Have you ever done anything this meaningful in your life? I asked her.

"Never, never, never!" she nearly cried.

Yesterday I came to understand that what was happening here was more than a fight about one bill. Today as I drove home, I kept thinking: This is probably going to go on for awhile.

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.