Daily Reflections

09/12-11/2022

Leading Better by L istening Better

I believe I’ve written about this story before. But we revisit all the stories that we find compelling. Especially the small ones. The brief bits of words that seem to swell with meaning. These stories endure many changes and cherrypicks over the generations, but they do endure.

It’s all a matter of perspective really. That’s what the three-picture slideshow was meant to convey during leadership training. The accompanying story was of a passerby inquiring after some workmen. In the first slide, we see a picture of a pile of bricks. When asked what they were doing, the first workman replied,

“I am moving these bricks from this truck to that pile.” And indeed, he was. That was his task for the project.

The second slide clicked over, and we see a picture of a well-built red brick wall. Straightly stacked and cleanly struck. And when the second workman was asked, “What are you doing?”, he replied,

“I am building walls.” He too, was correct, though both the first workman and himself were working towards the same goal.

A third image clicks. (And to be fair, I remembered thinking how, in this day and age, the mechanical and unmistakable click of a slide projector should have long been replaced by the smooth and silent, yet wholly unsatisfying transition in a power point presentation—to say nothing of the fact that loading a mere 3 slides onto that giant wheel seems a bit silly.) But there it was, all zoomed out from the pile of bricks. From the large brick walls. And you could see the entire building. A fine red brick church and its wooden steeple. Nearly finished.

“What are you doing?”

“Worshipping God.” Replies the final worker.

The story is not about worship, but vision. It is the seeing of the whole. The larger purpose contained in each brick. The logic of the mortar and the form it supports. The reason to build it at all. In this way, larger purpose is tantamount to larger perspective.

It would be easy to view the three workers as an argument for proletariat struggle or an indictment of classism. It is the path of understanding for the builder. The apprentice, journeyman, and master.

The apprentice builds with bricks. The journeymen build with plans and the master sees the project in their mind first. I think this metaphor demonstrates both the difference between those who see only their tasks and those who see their purpose. It also implies an order of establishing competence. It implies further, that time and practice lead to the expansion of perspective and thus, a larger purpose. Every master was once a journeyman and every journeyman, an apprentice.

These images and that leadership class have stuck with me for the last 12 years. And it seems to spin around most often when I am training new employees. We are all cutting potatoes and a brand new staffer is thinking about cutting the potatoes, their size and shape. The managers are thinking about making garlic mashed spuds, how the size and shape need be consistent so that they steam and mix properly. Hopefully, they are considering how much cream and butter and roasted garlic to set aside for when the time comes.

Meanwhile, I am thinking about how this starch goes with the one of three entrée’s and whether or not it will be enough to make each plate well. At least the 86 out of 153 that will get g-mash instead of roasted reds or wild rice. All of which will require notes because I won’t be overseeing that one wedding out of the three to which these potatoes are to be sent.

This is what all that “big picture” nonsense you hear in board meetings is really about. It is not corporate euphemism for watching others work, as it is so often employed. It is seeing the use and purpose of all tasks and positions as part of a whole. That whole is round, not square. There are no corner offices. Only the great circle that wraps around the collective purpose as it rolls us all forward.

I have no place training the apprentices. My perspective is too abstract for them. Not better. Not higher, just wider and therefore pulling on too many spokes of the wheel. Too much information for the potato chopper to focus on learning how to chop. For all my supposed “awareness”, I missed the larger point. I get frustrated when I don’t think some of them are seeing the whole wheel. But it is not their job to do so. It is mine. And the longer I insist that they do, the more I am asking them to do my work (as well as their own) for me.

I wasn’t listening to them, not really, when they asked their questions. They asked how to cut potatoes. Not why we cut potatoes. And for all my pontification on the subject, it is no wonder they had to ask again. And again. The feedback loop of my frustration as my metaphors and allegories became increasingly abstract was not of their doing. Not their incompetence. But mine.

Over thirty years and probably as many tons of potatoes finds me long forgetting what it is like to be intimidated by a 50# box of 90ct bakers. It is time I stop worshipping god and ask the brick tossers and stackers what I can do for them.