The (share)holder wins.

Do teachers see the benefit of their exertions too little? Did they point downwards too much and looked around too little?
Have entrepreneurs seen the human being and the world too little when they were directed at profit that they could derive themselves from ‘profitable’ situations? Have they taken too much from underneath and looked too little at the reaction of the people and the environment?

If you have to listen to chips…
McDonald’s is the biggest restaurant in the world but a cook does not work there. The water tomato is red and big quickly but does not taste. Farmers follow their cattle via computer screens. Spreadsheets justify the results. Jaap Peters makes a striking comparison between intensive cattle farming and the way in which many organisations deal with people in his book ‘Intensive Human Farming.’ It is remarkable that the Dutch breeding sows perform very well in relation to member of the same species in other countries and in relation to their ancestors. An additional phenomenon is that they last less and less longer. The average well performing breeding sow is turned into a sausage after two and a half years at the moment. You could state that the ladies are rewarded in a strange way for their above-average achievement. In what way do output indicators influence your achievements and your reward? Are your involvement and well-being considered in coherence? And does that happen from a spreadsheet?

On TV a Belgian woman was asked: “Why are your chips much tastier than those of the Dutch? In fact we have comparable potatoes and deep fat.” “That is simple,” the keeper of the chips stand said, “Dutch people look at the packaging when the chips are ready, but we listen to the chips.”

Mother’s Day: colouring or doing detention work
It is Mother’s Day 2007. Two thousand seven! Robbert is in special education. That the school is special, his teacher (not for the first time) proved around Mother’s Day. When Robbert got off the van on Friday afternoon, he walked into the house with a confused face. He threw his backpack casually into the corner.
“What is the matter” asked his mother.
“I had to make something stupid for Mother’s Day, but you may not see it until Sunday. ”
“Well, if you have made it, I will like it anyway ,” his mother smiled The bag disappeared upstairs.
On Sunday morning the house smelt of tasty buns. With his eyes looking down Robbert shoved a coloured double-folded paper to the front.
“For you , mummy, you must read how stupid it is.”
His mother took it up, looked at the colourful drawing and read the printed poem. After an introduction the heart of the text is:
It will be Mother’s Day the whole day and we are going to spoil you
You are doing that the whole year with food and the knitting you do
With baking, sewing and vacuum cleaning, scouring, polishing and cleaning windows
And you will never take a day off for youself….
She began to laugh and looked at Robbert. Robbert was ashamed visibly. “I really did not want it,” he said “but I had to.”
“What do you mean: you had to?” his mother asked.
“Well, I told that you did not knit and that we have got a cleaning woman who cleans here and that you really take a day off for yourself and that I really did not want to make this for you. ”
“And then?”
“Then the teacher said: You can choose now either colouring or doing detention work. Then I did do it.. sorry. ” But contradicting children that know their own mother and want to thank her in an appropriate way: that is very special indeed!

There is a political scientist who has said: “A citizen from a democratic society is somebody who is prepared to be governed, to adapt to a system, but he must also be prepared himself to govern.”

De Winter: “A democracy gene has not been discovered yet. So we will have to educate.”

Participation ladder of Hart
In his book ‘Children as fellow citizens’ De Winter refers to the participation ladder of Roger Hart. It is a useful instrument for counsellors of children to look how far an instrument really goes in making children participate: the children not as clients but as participants. Hart has set out grades of participation on a ladder of eight rungs:
1. Manipulation
Children are used for the purposes of adults.
2. Decoration
Children form the scenery as justification for the acting of adults.
3. Buying off
Children do get the opportunity to join the conversation but their voice is not heard in fact.
4. By order, but informed
Adults develop activities and perform these. Children are informed as such that they understand and know who decides and why.
5. Consulted and informed
Children take initiatives and execute these activities. Children get insight and their opinion gets a serious treatment.
6. Initiative with adults, children decide too
Adults take initiatives. At the preparation and decision taking children are invited to participate completely to come to shared decisions.
7. Initiative and lead with children
Children take initiatives and decisions without intervention of adults.
8. Initiative with children, children and adults decide together.
Children take initiatives, prepare decisions and decide themselves in good consultation with adults.

Real participation only occurs from rung four on the ladder, at the preceding forms there is a would-be participation because these forms yield something for adults, not for children. The shared influence of adults and children is seen as the highest form of participation and is for that reason on rung eight.

Canary in the mines
Formerly miners took a canary into the mines. If the canary did not whistle anymore that was a sign that gas could have escaped. The miners themselves did not notice this because it could happen so gradually. (As a frog allows itself to cook if you increase the temperature of the water in which it is lying). So a non-singing bird was necessary to know if a dangerous gas was in the air.
In this way good managers and colleagues notice too which birds in the team do not whistle anymore (or whistle too loudly). It is important that the whistling of those birds is not only seen as ‘annoying’ but also as an important signal.

The ant that cannot smell
In ‘Transforming talents’ Jozef Kok describes an incident from the animal world that serves as a metaphor for ‘the use of a deviation.’ Ants seem to walk about chaotically and out of control. But biologists have shown that every normal ant has two talents: the talent to smell and the talent to emit a scent. The power of smell takes care that the ant can follow the trail of scent of another ant (which has for instance found a prey) and ends up with the food in that way. The ability to leave trails of scent gives the ant the possibility , if it has found something itself, to set out a trail for other ants so that they can find it too. If all ants were perfect, this (closed) system would soon get stuck. Because everybody walks after each other. And if no food is found, it stops. But…. fortunately there are in every population some ants with a deviation. They cannot smell for instance, but they can leave trails of scent. That type indeed walks around without a trace and deviates from the beaten tracks. And it runs the accidental chance to come across food. If that happens, the animal immediately puts out traces so that other ants end up at the new source. A single ant with a deviation saves a population with this. A perfect system is its own death. Every system needs a certain amount of deviant behaviour. It is the paradox to some chaotic people who take care of stability and continuity in the system by organising coincidence.