Be Your Own Boss

If Extension is to be an information-age organization, it must foster a climate of personal growth, entrepreneurship, and challenge to motivate agents and specialists-the real "bosses" in Extension. Although the traditional Extension management style falls short of creating this climate,1 we who are in fact the bosses in Extension can still create our own success.

Let's first examine our common complaints. We attend too many meetings, make too many reports, and are diverted from our important work in conducting Extension programs. To make matters worse, our supervisors never go along with our creative ideas and support only activities that are part of the approved Extension routine. Their motto is, "Never do anything for the first time." And finally, there's never enough money. But if we're honest, we'll admit that we protest too much. Total all the time spent in meetings, doing paperwork, and other administrative trivia and the hours just don't add up. It's the converse of "time flies when you're having fun." We really spent a few hours on meeting and reports-it just seems longer.

And what about our innovative ideas? The truth is that we tend to carry out programs in the old familiar way, covering our backsides and avoiding taking initiatives that have a significant risk of failure. Our view of administrators as people who can't (or won't) make a decision to do something a little differently contains a certain amount of truth and a lot of stereotyping. The fact is, most of them are like us. You can put a county agent in a carpeted office with a row of buttons on the telephone, but you still have a county agent.

As Extension professionals, we're highly skilled in identifying and solving problems in our external environment (with clientele). This is very important; it's not enough. To continue to be a force for change, we must also reflect critically on our own behavior, identify the ways we contribute to our organization's problems, and change how we act. This we do poorly, if at all. Management expert Chris Argyris calls the problem "single-loop learning."2 He suggests highly skilled professionals are good at single-loop learning because they have spent their lives in acquiring degrees, mastering subject matter, and applying it in the real world. Because they're so successful, they rarely experience failure. Thus, they don't learn from failure. Whenever their single-loop learning strategy fails, they become defensive, screen out criticism, and blame everyone but themselves. Their ability to learn shuts down at the very moment it's needed, diverting their attention and creative energy from vital targets. They begin to respond to the needs of "internal customers," such as administrators, co-workers, or, in some cases, their own personal agendas rather than organizational goals. But the success of any organization has been, and will be, judged by the external customers; in Extension, it's our clientele.3

Management writers are often asked: "Did you come here with the solution or are you part of the problem?" To that question, my answer is "yes." What follows is a list of precepts gleaned from research, co-workers, and other organizations. Some may be hard to swallow, but if you really want to be the boss, they'll lead to personal satisfaction, professional achievement, and the joy of running your own show.

1. Get your act together. Don't feel threatened by the prospect of critically examining your own performance and changing ineffective behaviors. The alternative is to project the blame for problems away from yourself and onto unclear goals, unfair administrators, and stupid clientele.

2. Cut a deal. Bosses may resist new initiatives because if you fail, then they fail also. Work out a "no-fault" arrangement. For example, propose accomplishing all mutually agreed-on objectives in your plan of work if you can spend "unplanned time" on your idea. Then if it bombs out, it never happened.

3. Find the money. The budget is tight this year. What else is new? If your idea is that good, you can probably locate a foundation, company, or agency to fund it or at least share in the cost. Cast your bread on the waters.

4. Do it anyway. In spite of your best efforts to sell your idea, you still might get stonewalled. If the project is not illegal, immoral, or fattening, consider moving ahead without official authorization. It's often easier to get forgiveness than permission.

5. Manage your time. Write the bureaucratic chores you hate on a list and do one the first thing every morning. Check it off and reward yourself by doing Extension work the rest of the day. Get control of you time and your professional life.

6. Manage the boss. Motivation is a two-way street. The more you express appreciation for and reinforce supportive administrative behavior, the more you're going to get. Criticizing the boss usually brings on a defensive reaction and changes nothing.

7. Go along and get along. Most Extension administrators were once pretty good agents or specialists. If occasionally one of them has an idea that still works, give it a shot. If not, do what you were going to do anyway and tell the person how helpful his or her suggestions were.

8. Network. There are plenty of people around with ideas, skills, and resources. Your land grant university is a good place to find them. As an Extension professional, you have at least two of these commodities. Trade what you have for what you need.

9. Focus externally. Expand your time and efforts for the benefit of external customers-the clientele. Try to avoid a pervasive concern with serving internal customers such as administrators, co-workers, and even your own agenda. Particularly avoid the mindset that says, "What's good for me is good for the program."

10. Make a career change. If you can't find anything useful among 1-9 above, you're obviously not suited to be an agent or specialist (a "boss") in the Extension information-age organization. Apply for the next available job in administration. We'll try to work with you. If that fails, we'll work around you.

1. James A. Buford, Jr., "Extension Management in the Information Age," Journal of Extension, XXVIII (Spring 1990), 28- 30; see also, Keith L. Smith, "The Future Leaders in Extension, XXVIII (Spring 1990), 26-28.

2. Chris Argyris, "Teaching Smart People How to Learn," Harvard Business Review, LXIX (May-June 1991), 99-109.

3. Oren Harari, "Should Internal Customers Exist?" Management Review, LXXX (July 1991), 41-43.

This article is online at http://www.joe.org/joe/1993spring/f1.html.

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