Fowl (Vol. 1)

Chicken has been on my brain lately. This is weird because I don’t eat chicken (or any other meat). I have been thinking about chickens because I am noticing adult behavior around me that very much reminds me of two chicken-based children's stories: The Little Red Hen and Henny Penny. 

I stopped eating meat when I lived in Ireland (2000). That year there was an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease. This meant cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, and deer were all catching this (gross) disease and spreading it. This is different from the Hand, Foot, and Mouth the kids are getting these days. It was such a major health concern that St. Patrick’s Day was canceled. St. Patrick’s Day was canceled. In Ireland. Devastating. Anyhow, to try and curb the spread, all entrances to campus buildings and shops had disinfectant filled mats we had to walk over to kill any germs on our shoes and cars drove over bigger versions. What does this have to do with my vegetarianism you ask? Well, one night on the news a doctor was being asked if humans could catch this pesky and blistery disease and he said, “we don’t think so.” WHAT? You don’t think so? That is not scientific at all. I had also just returned from ten days in Spain where all I ate was meat.* It was a perfect storm to put me off eating the animals. 

The Little Red Hen (I just googled “chicken vs. hen” because my brain is broken. Hens are adult lady chickens. They lay the eggs.) is a fable about the importance of taking initiative and working hard. One day a hen finds some wheat laying on the ground and decides she wants to make bread. Great idea. The thing is that there are several important steps between wheat and actual bread. The little red hen  first plants the wheat. She asks the other animals on the farm to help her but they offer a chorus of nos. Growing up my version read:

Not I, said the cow.

Not I, said the duck. 

Not I, said the goose.

Not I, said the pig. 

Next she has to water the wheat. She asks for help and again, hard passes from the rest of the animals. Once the wheat has grown, the Little Red Hen has to harvest it. She is hopeful that the other animals will be of some help this time. Nope. They are not interested. Finally, the Little Red Hen bakes the bread and asks if the other animals want to eat it. All of a sudden everyone is very interested in what is happening. They all want some of the bread. But the little Red Hen is not having this. She runs away with the bread and eats it all herself. Yes, queen! 

This story has been used in a lot of contexts. In 1976, Ronald Regan decided to rewrite it as an allegory of government regulation. You can listen to it if that’s your thing. According to the internet, it has also been used to satire capitalism, and as a pro-work socialist anthem. Damn everybody! Leave the Little Red Hen alone to bake her bread in peace.

Clearly, the moral of the story is that if you don’t contribute you don’t get to enjoy the results of the hard work others have invested. This is not an unfamiliar scenario to many of us. Responsible individuals are often put in positions where they have to take on most (or all) of the work in order to finish something and then the farm animals that didn’t contribute still want some freshly baked bread. They want to reap the benefits without the effort. They are free riders. They are everywhere. They suck. Free riders are something my students are often faced with. Many faculty assign group projects and without fail there is at least one team a semester trying to deal with the person who does absolutely nothing. My response has always been to tell them that this mirrors the real world and they have to figure it out. However, after reading more and thinking about it I am going to change my approach because it isn’t helpful. Yes, having the ability to manage difficult team members is a useful skill but should that be their job? Why should the people who contribute have to also do the work of trying to engage the free rider? Why do they have to solve a problem they didn’t create?** I looked for guidance on this and found awesome suggestions. I am going to implement some of them in my group projects and others are applicable at work because free riders are everywhere!

Qualitative peer feedback: Allow everyone a way to share what people are doing well and where they need to improve. I was looking around and it seems like there are a lot of online platforms that do this.

Options for students: PeerStudio, Peergrade, FeedbackFruits. I have not tried any yet but if you have and like one in particular let me know!

Options for work: Betterworks, CultureAmp, Officevibe.

I was wondering how anonymity plays into peer feedback and was happy to see some research on it. Generally speaking it sounds like anonymous feedback is the best way to go. 

Make individual inputs visible: Have people “claim” what they are doing and make sure everyone else knows. This way, if something is missing/terrible it is clear who was responsible for the work. 

Ensure that the groups are not too large: If there are a lot of people (especially without clear direction and unique roles) it is easier for free riders to “hide” and for their lack of contribution to be overlooked. 

Show what others are doing: The thought is that when free riders see how much less they are doing they will start to do more. I have to disagree with this one. I think most free riders know that they are free riding. They know what other people are doing, they just don’t want to do it. Maybe in some situations this will work but in my experience free riding is pretty purposeful. 

Some of these things will take a real shift in how we operate. Personally, I am not a fan of letting anything fall through the cracks (ever) so the idea of a project I am on not looking fantastic because someone else is slacking would slowly break me down as a person. But, in order to break the cycle of free riding, we have to be willing to let other people screw up knowing that we did our part. A crucial piece of this puzzle is accountability. If it is clear who was supposed to do what and the free rider faces no consequences; that creates a variety of problems:

Motivational problem: Why do all the work if the people who slack face no repercussions? Or worse yet, if the slackers are rewarded the same as the rest of the people who actually performed (i.e. everyone gets the same “merit” raise)? That is exceptionally demotivating to the actual contributors and signals to the free riders that they are doing just fine. 

Organizational culture problem: Not calling out bad behavior is a great way to create a toxic work environment. If companies aren’t addressing free riders, what else is being ignored? Turning a blind eye will not go unnoticed by employees. Their frustration will fester and that is hard to turn around. 

Communication problem: If someone on your team is free riding you have to say something. It’s a bummer to feel like you are tattling on an adult but if they don’t do the work, someone will have to and it might be you. 

Management problem: Leaders should be aware of the employees that aren’t pulling their weight. If they don’t see this it’s because they aren’t paying close enough attention, the free rider is also a bullshitter who convinces them how much they do, it just started happening, or no one has told them. 

Efficiency problem: Free riders slow down processes. This impacts the team’s ability to accomplish tasks which then costs the organization money. 

I was super interested to read that free riding actually increases the closer groups are to the end of a project. That’s no good! The thought is that everyone is pushing to meet the deadline so people may feel “entitled” to give themselves a little bit of a break. That is exceptionally annoying to the people doing the work and I think that annoyance sometimes leads to just sharing the bread we made. Letting everyone have a piece is easier than listening to the team members/farm animals bitch. We know they didn’t earn a piece. They know they didn’t earn a piece. But the difference is that they don’t care. They feel entitled to the bread for whatever reason (proximity to the bread making process?) and pitch a fit when they don’t get to reap the benefits of other’s work. Maybe quiet quitting is just free riding in a fancy new outfit. Who’s to say? 

This is the most time I have ever spent thinking about chicken and I am not done yet. The next blog is all about the story of Henny Penny. While I finish writing it I leave you with this list of the top 15 fancy chickens as well as this:

Just look at that marvelous chicken!!

*While there I went to the Caminito del Rey trail in Malaga. It had not yet been restored and was terrifying because parts of the path were straight up missing. In the nearby town we stopped for lunch and I didn’t remember the translation for one of the words on the menu. When I asked the waiter what it was he bleated at me. It was a goat (chivo). I ate it. Gross. 

**This is something that has really been annoying me lately. While I have been doing research about women at work it has become increasingly apparent that, in order for things to change, we have to make them happen. We did not cause these issues. We are impacted by these issues. Yet, we have to take our time and skills to help fix the issues. It’s bullshit. It feels like being the sober person cleaning up the barf from your drunk friend. You didn’t barf so why are you dealing with this? Because your friend is drunk. She is incapable of cleaning up without making an even bigger mess. So you step in, lay her down, take off her shoes, and force her to take Advil and drink some water even though she keeps yelling that she wants to eat PANCAKES and go back to the bar. I guess sometimes business organizations are like our drunk friends.