Every day, a little ant arrived at work very early and began her tasks without wasting any time. She was extremely productive and seemed very happy with her work.
The manager, a lion, was always surprised to see her working unsupervised. Then he thought, "If she can produce like this without anyone supervising her, she'll surely be able to do much more if she has a supervisor."
That said, she sought out and recruited the cockroach, who had extensive experience as a manager and was known for preparing and presenting excellent reports.
Their first decision was to install a clock at the entrance to monitor arrival and departure times.
He also needed a secretary to help him write his reports. So he decided to hire the spider to also manage his files and monitor his phone calls.
The lion was delighted with the reports the cockroach sent him and asked him to produce some graphs showing production ratios and an analysis of trends so he could use them for his own presentations to the board.
The cockroach then had to buy a new computer, a laser printer, and hire the fly to manage the systems department.
Meanwhile, the ant, who had once been so productive and relaxed, hated all the paperwork overload and endless meetings where he wasted most of his time. The lion then decided it was time to hire someone to take over the department where the ant works.
The winner was the grasshopper, whose first decision was to replace the carpet and get an ergonomic chair for his office. He also needed a computer and a personal assistant, whom he brought from his old workplace to help him with scheduling and the Strategic Budget Control Plan.
The place where the ant works is now sad, no one laughs anymore and everyone walks around worried…
This was reason enough for the grasshopper to convince the lion of the need to conduct an indoor climate survey. And since the lion had inspected the apartment where the ant worked, it was easy to see how productivity had significantly decreased during this time.
His decision was to recruit the owl to conduct an audit and suggest solutions. After three months, he submitted his report and a final conclusion: the department is overstaffed.
Guess who they targeted first?
To the ant!!!
The causes?: showing a negative attitude and lack of motivation.
Translator's note: The characters in this fable are fictitious. Any resemblance to individuals or events within the companies is…
Mere coincidence??
The fable I'm sharing with you made me think about situations that are experienced daily in organizations:
- Performance evaluation and management methodologies that always start “from the bottom up.”
- Management control reports where the results are very good in one column and terrible after the famous: "administrative expenses" or "indirect costs."
- The belief that people who operate don't "have a head" and need some savior to think for them.
- The fear of the implementation of autonomous working groups, which results in the centralization of decisions on the desk, outside of "gemba”: the place where things happen.
And the list could go on.
I would like to invite you then to think about some concepts that, perhaps, will help us challenge stereotypes:
- The differences between “labor” and “brain and heart of labor.”
- The decisions in “gemba” versus decisions in the office.
- Excessive control versus training for autonomy and true teamwork.
Isn't it time to start questioning other paradigms?
Because, as an old Danish proverb says: “He who is afraid to ask is ashamed to learn.”
I hear you
