Member Centric Quotes

Business leaders should embrace transparency and fairness in all interactions, just as we would with family members.

*I’ve always had an alternative reading of the Body Snatchers movies (Siegel’s, Kaufman’s, and Ferrara’s). Each movie presents the Pod People in a sinister light. Yet really, almost nothing they do on screen really bears out this sinister interpretation. If you’re one who believes that your soul is what makes you you, then I suppose the Pod People are murdering the Earthlings they duplicate and replace. However, if you’re more of the mind that it is your intellect and your consciousness that make you who you are, then the Pod People transformation is closer to a rebirth than a murder. You’re reborn as straight intellect, with a complete possession of your past and your abilities, but unburdened by messy human emotions. You also possess a complete fidelity to your fellow beings and a total commitment to the survival of your species. Are they inhuman? Of course, they’re vegetables. But the movies try to present their lack of humanity (they don’t have a sense of humor, they’re unmoved when a dog is hit by a car) as evidence of some deep-seated sinisterness. That’s a rather species-centric point of view. As human beings it may be our emotions that make us human, but it’s a stretch to say it’s what makes us great. Along with those positive emotions—love, joy, happiness, amusement—come negative emotions—hate, selfishness, racism, depression, violence, and rage. For instance, with all the havoc that Donald Sutherland causes in the Kaufman version, including the murder of various Pod People, there never is a thought of punishment or vengeance on the Pod People’s part, even though he’s obviously proven himself to be a threat. They just want him to become one of them. Imagine in the fifties, when the Siegel film was made, that instead of some little town in Northern California (Santa Mira) that the aliens took root in, it was a horribly racist, segregated Ku Klux Klan stronghold in the heart of Mississippi. Within weeks the color lines would disappear. Blacks and whites would be working together (in genuine brotherhood) towards a common goal. And humanity would be represented by one of the racist Kluxers whose investigative gaze notices formerly like-minded white folks seemingly enter into a conspiracy with some members of the county’s black community. Now picture his hysterical reaction to it (“Those people are coming after me! They’re not human! You’re next! You’re next!”). *Solving the problems, both large and small, of your actors—lead actors especially—is the job of a film director.

When the team members have achieved a deep understanding of the current state and they are mapping on consecutive days, designing the future state often occurs organically- as long as people are open to challenging their existing silo-centric paradigms about how and where work should be performed

Psychologist Mark Leary and his colleagues designed a need-to-belong scale that measures how far a person would be willing to go to feel included.5 When people have a high need to belong, they become more other-centric. They are more likely to set their own needs aside and comply with what others want. They are more likely to take other people’s feelings into consideration because they are concerned about the disappointment, frustration, and inconvenience that their decisions might cause others. They might do things to avoid rejection and negative evaluation by members of their group.

Improvement and achieving the right balance in any truly customer-centric organization requires all team members to believe that things can be improved.

Young workers in Japan, referred to as the hodo-hodo zoku, started a cultural movement to avoid promotions in order to minimize stress and maximize free time. In China, there’s a growing social media trend of “tang ping”—workers “lying flat” to actively resist the expectation of constant work. Tricia Hersey, an American performance artist and self-proclaimed “Nap Bishop,” preaches the gospel of rest as an act of resistance to capitalism through her writing and communal-napping installations. The r/antiwork subreddit, an online community of workers exploring less work-centric existences, has over 2 million members.