I grew up in a small rural community on Vancouver Island, British Columbia called Merville. When I was a kid I helped my dad help his best friend clear hundreds of hay bales from his field. When I was a little older I worked with – and eventually supervised – the crew of guys who took the bales from the field and stacked ’em in the barn. It was dirty, hot and fulfilling work and here are three career lessons I learned from tossing hay bales.
Embrace the power of small wins
A colleague of mine recently shared with me an HBR article by Teresa Amabile and Steven J Kramer that focuses on the power of small wins:
Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work. And the more frequently people experience that sense of progress, the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run. Whether they are trying to solve a major scientific mystery or simply produce a high-quality product or service, everyday progress—even a small win—can make all the difference in how they feel and perform.
What the heck does this have to do with overseeing the offloading and stacking of hundreds of hay bales in a day? With every row upon dusty row of stacked bales, our team experienced what Amabile and Kramer call “the progress principle” – we could see and touch the fruits of our labour. In today’s Networked Age of work, where we’re often creating and connecting ideas on screens, it’s important to remember that the most powerful way to engage employees is by creating opportunities for them to experience and articulate the consistent progress of their work.
Lean in to what’s hard
I suffer from a rare blood disorder that makes me react severely to ultraviolet light – to make things simple I refer to this condition as “being allergic to the Sun.” Here’s a fun fact about cutting, baling and stacking hay: it’s best done during the hottest and driest days of summer. To say the least, my disability didn’t really jive with the conditions in which I was working – in fact, I had to spend most of the day in the dusty barn, which was at least shady even if the temperature was ridiculously hot. This meant being vulnerable and explaining to strangers why I was dressed not unlike a ninja and why I couldn’t be outside loading bales on to the trucks or on to the conveyor belt that rolled them up into the barn. It also meant that I needed to trust the people in the fields and at the base of the conveyor belt to do their jobs. Accommodating a disability, being vulnerable, and giving trust up-front to strangers are all hard things to do. Tossing bales in the summer helped to make all of these things a little easier in my work and life in the decade since the experience.
Safety comes first
My dad’s friend, Gord, grew up on a farm, worked in construction (in addition to his farming practice), and was a trade union leader on Vancouver Island. While I approached these three or four days of summer as a fun foray into a novel world of work, for Gord it was part of his life and with it came a high standard of safety. More than anything else, he emphasized how important it was to take care of the folks who were working to clear the fields (some were my friends, some were Quebecois tenants who were working in trade for reduced rent, and some were youth from the community who relished the chance to make $100 in a day). Their safety was my responsibility as “Hay Foreman” (a title my dad jokingly gave me) and, in terms of my career development, it was the first time that I was accountable for other peoples’ wellbeing. Today the people I manage don’t risk being crushed by an incorrectly stacked row of hay bales; however, there are countless other physical, mental and emotional injuries that can befall folks in the workplace and I’m accountable for everyone being safe, included and engaged.