Stewardship

BY Peter Block

PREMISE: Why is it Western Democracies get lots of credit for forward thinking, innovation, and success, not to mention liberty and freedom for all, yet our corporations as well as small businesses– the backbone of the economy—for whom many of us work—practice in a style that is more consistent with communism which has clearly failed: where compliance is everything, where watching and studying take precedence over doing, and when obviously failing, trying harder with what is not working?  Or put another way, we can practice democracy on weekends and at night but not during the work week. That’s a problem. So is the recognition that MAGA would take aim using the same words at our syle of national governing for the last few decades.

ONE  ANSWER: Stewardship (speaking to the movers and shakers in any business)  is a process of looking at prestige, power, position, money----and holding it in trust for others. Authentic service is about balance, and not domination, where the primary commitment is to and from the group  as well as the business goals—where individuals help define the purpose of the enterprise and where rewards flow to everyone.

The book suggests a different way of configuring businesses— large business, subunits of large businesses, and small businesses. There is a boss—but this model rejects “patriarchy” defined as top-down requirements for compliance, legislated accountability, and the grounding assumption that without absolute obedience, the whole thing falls apart.

What would such an approach actually look like?

Suppose you work in a satellite clinic of a large Health Care Organization, like Kaiser. As the leaders of the clinic, you are tasked with organizing the staff and work flows. You bring all the relevant employees together and outline the following:

  We or I (lead manager or directors) need your help developing a clinic that is stellar on patient experience, cost containment, efficiency for both patients and for ourselves--who provide the service, and a work environment that helps you do your job as well as you can.

The larger company will allow us some freedom to design our own process but we will be accountable for our costs, our patients satisfaction scores, our quality scores (like vaccination and screening mammograms done), and our staff satisfaction scores. If we live within our budget, there is a bonus structure that will be shared amongst the team. If we are under budget, and achieve our quality and satisfaction scores, more money for the teams.

If we fail at this—any one of the critical measures— we will have to re-work our processes together and try again. We have three years to get this right. This might require our getting together outside of normal work hours to improve the processes.

For this to work, I need you to engage and give honest feedback. If there are parts of this you cannot live with, reflect on what you can live with and make a decision—can you live with what we come up with and try it or should you leave (there will be openings in the traditional clinic to which you can be transferred).  We don’t want you to stay and work this if you cannot engage with it.

Our data will come in monthly  and with quarterly summaries—-and of course a year-end summary of our work. This will be shared with you and your comments and thoughts on improving our processes will be welcome—you can give suggestions publicly or privately but the content  of this input will be shared widely.

Our budget starting out will be based on an the average for clinics in our system. If we work under budget, we keep a portion of that (50%) for ourselves. The budget may change over time based on market conditions and how the larger organization is doing. The insurance industry goes from feast to famine and we won’t be protected completely from that. However, if we have a down year, the larger company with “insure us” to cover our losses and that is why we surrender half of our profits to them. If we choose to not have this “insurance” we will be at risk for not meeting budget ie take salary reductions.

If we succeed at this; hit all the targets, we will have the freedom to further flex our systems in the clinic to further improve as we grow and your opinions will help guide just what that will look like. In fact, we as a group can decide to distribute our profit or invest it in our work—for example a new employee to help with a process or your work for example.

Please think about your benefit structures and the quality of your days working here.

Annual reviews: just as our patients evaluate the service we provide,  we will review each other: annual reviews will have input from everyone; anonymity will be provided until you have faith you don’t need it.

While I never worked in the above scenario, I am aware that some elements do work. For example, the small West Olympia Clinic where I worked for years had a comraderie and a problem solving approach as well as a passion for our collective “mission” that was mediated by a common lunch room, an easy communication process, social activities, trust in each other, and pride in our targets achieved: economic efficiencies providing care, patient satisfaction, and staff satisfaction.

When we experienced a “bust” moment in the insurance cycle, the clinic was closed down and the staff of the West Olympia Clinic was absorbed into a larger clinic. Those met targets were lost with it. You can’t transfer a work environment like you can car parts and expect success or even smooth functioning.

The author suggests this work environment is a way to innovate, improve work processes and moral but is in fact a conscious choice on the part of employees to choose “adventure over safety.”  He notes in many environments, good people at work—both managers and line workers prefer safety when offered a choice….

Another example, a small business, comes to mind: Titan Health Care in Olympia. This small primary care clinic cannot offer a salary or a benefit structure comparable to those of large organizations, so how do they acquire good employees? This clinic adapts many of the principles of Stewardship to enhance the services available along with a sense of control on the part of the employees. Not all compensation is in dollars. It has won the “best of…” in our community for a couple years running.

I have long had an ambiguous opinion about unions. As a housepainter, I could underbid them and provide a great personal service. My overhead and benefit structure were not transferable to a wage owner with a family. As an adult, I saw them as a necessary evil, as a bureaucracy built to protect its own against a more powerful bureaucracy (the business, whatever it is). That is what history has presented to us. I have often longed for a different way where the manager, with a skill set can collaborate and problem solve with line workers and share the profits making a Union unnecessary. I don’t know many examples of that and the author above points out that even with success, this model can evolve and become dysfunctional which almost always leads to a reconstruction of the original top down model. That is a default (and historicaly, is a larger default in crisis: think of the managed economies in the US during the Civil War and World War II.

I think we are going to see a lot more of that—top down management—in spades —as we return to the Gilded Age of Business. It is nice to know that there are other paths that have pay-offs worth valuing and which can be developed locally.

Some short comments from the author:

STEWARDSHIP 101. Rules to live by:

Communicate the concept  ie the problem we have to solve, face to face. Be clear of constraints, tools, rules, risks, and opportunities.

Confront those who cannot commit to the contract in the beginning---you need acts of will, not participation.

Individuals define their own interests and values. This does not mean a common vision but it can mean a common mission and common contract agreed to.

Dialogue—discuss common values BUT do not institutionalize them.

Live with different paces and paths---don’t live with bad results—if they exist, action is required.

Keep measurement in perspective—you don’t go to a restaurant for the menu----you go for the dining experience.

Do share what you measure—widely.

Survey your own people face to face.

Recognize good people/teams.

Corollaries of the above :

HR’s role  should be as teachers and not parents.

Performance Agreements: these are used for social control---your customers should       rate you, not your boss.

Work silo’s  evolved in an environment of industrial revolution and made some sense. We are no longer in the industrial revolution---it is time to move on. We need tighter cycle times, adaptations to consumer needs and to each others’ inputs. When you focus on control and predictability, you slow down and don’t adapt. If you give up control/predictability, you gain response time, adaptability to the environment, and intimacy. When was the last time you felt intimacy at a workplace, be you worker or customer?

Your Boss’s goal for the organization should be to develop teams that don’t need a coach.

Stewards reward teams/not individuals— Consider the French Class where 40% of each person’s grade is a function of the class average!

Lots of evidence that increased pay does not lead to delivery of better performance. All of us like money---none of us wants to be bought. Sharing the wealth after you all deliver the goods, now that’s a fair request.

 Get paid for outcomes, not promises or span of control.

Bringing in consultants to do this “dirty work” confirms patriarchy.

When managing a business vision, he includes everyone---line people, unions, etc.

If we franchised Kaiser/GHC clinics, could we follow the ATT store model?

Each gets a profit-loss statement

Measures used are system-wide

Annual reviews are done by workers---they present.

Last thoughts: I think this can work but will usually be ephemeral; it is hard to institutionalize because people and their needs change over time. Said another way, a wonderful romantic relationship hitting on all cylinders evolves into something different with the work of raising a family, enduring loss, and re-orienting to the outside world over time.

If I needed a good French Class Grade AND wanted to speak French well, with the notion that 40% of my grade would be dependent on others, I might try to convince some people to leave the class. Strategic but is it messed up?

In times of crisis, every society, including our own becomes top down—the US did this in the Civil War and World War II. Why do all the “efficiencies” of the market get thrown out when there is a real crisis?

My kids and grandkids went to public schools where their grade on some projects involved  a group process. This mimics how things will often go in the workplace. My kids and grandkids often complained that in that group, their personal need for success and learning found them shouldering the lion’s share of the work of the group, and this felt unfair. I struggled with this—I thought it unfair as well,  but wound up concluding that what does not kill you makes you stronger, and fairness was not a relevant issue unless you chose to make it one—and worrying about this usually increased the workload and pressure if a timeline was on the horizon. If you want to get good at something, some unfairness is part of the price.

This model requires a social and interactive work environment. The trends from what I can see is a Balkanization of the work force, especially in white collar jobs. Work in a cubicle or at home and interact sparingly and only when necessary. I imagine many workers would wrinkle their noses rather than face this model as a choice to be taken. The author would say they are choosing safety over adventure. While I personally can enjoy working in that environment, ie on my own most the time,  I believe in the end it is dysfunctional and does not take advantage of nuanced as well as dramatic improvements—the goals set out in the book—which are best achieved with cooperative and personally interactive work models.

Innovation: he cites an example for criticism. An innovation effort lead to workers designing their workspace—which was done, was innovative, and 20% under budget----the bosses then tried to cram this innovative design down everyone else’s throat without remembering the principles of how it came to be. And it did not work as well elsewhere. A corollary: if you have a list of ten things to get done this year, and by March you have achieved three of them, what do you do next? The patriarchal answer is move on to number four. The Stewardship model might be to  draw up a new list of  the ten things that need to be done this year with the new perspective March gives us. I like that kind of thinking.