The Work Revolution: Freedom and Excellence for All

Individuals Inspiring Differentiation

What if you work in a top-down organization? What if your manager is a diminisher? And what if your team is made up of individuals who are afraid to speak up? You still have “response-ability.” You still have room to help create an environment in which you can personally thrive. I’m talking about grassroots movements, in which grassroots groups are the new employee unions. Grassroots movements generate excitement, give people an individuated voice, and prompt action to make change.

There is incredible power in being the employee who steps up, even quietly and with the utmost respect, to start a movement. Maybe you attempt to improve the copy machine situation, to end the cycle of it breaking down every two days. You troubleshoot the maintenance issues and, ultimately, convince the vendor to replace the damn thing once and for all. Maybe you lobby for a new coffee supplier, because the current brew is so weak it could be pawned off as drinking water in a third-world country. Maybe you convince management to get rid of the TPS forms because, in reality, they serve no real function except to annoy both managers and employees.

Pick an issue, any issue, about which you are passionate. Then, fix it. It really is that simple.

Grassroots initiatives will achieve several goals at once:

• They will fix problems for which solutions didn’t magically appear until this point.
• They will show that you are capable of both ideas and execution; and managers will ...