Many years ago, I had someone working for me whom we'll call Don. Long before the rest of the world cottoned on to the idea of the stay-at-home Dad, Don had decided to quit his career-path job to be with his kids more. However, he still needed to work and so we hired him part-time.
Think this will be a story about life-work balance and juggling child care with office duties? Wrong! Along with his new role, Don found he had lots of time to read. And he picked up a title called "The Path Of Least Resistance" by Robert Fritz. (Not sure if it's still in print.)
This book is mainly about creativity and changing the underlying structure of your life but... that's not what Don got out of it. As he read further into the book, his philosophy became one of: 'It's OK if you don't feel like doing something', in fact, taking the path of least resistance on any onerous task is OK.
For Don, in the workplace, this translated to: If we don't feel like making sales calls, we don't have to. If we don't feel like stressing to deal with a difficult assignment, we needn't. Etc., etc.
Trouble is, his work for the company wasn't getting done! Eventually, we had to let him go.
You can't stop your employees from reading whatever they want but it is a good idea to keep tabs on any "new thinking" a person might be gaining from what they read IF it will become detrimental to the function of the workplace. (Not sure where the revenue was going to come from if we stopped making sales calls...)Fads, fetishes and more, plus their impact in the workplace is one of the topics I tackle in my book Other People's Problems. Why You Need To Go On Interviewing Your Employees - After You Hire Them!"
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http://www.deborahcsawyer.com/shopsite_sc/page2.html
Copyright Deborah C. Sawyer
