The Cure for the Management Migraine - by Mark Deavall
Just this morning I was sitting with a client chatting through the management challenges that he experiences in his company. I don’t have to tell you the long list of problems that he brought to the table – you have them all every day too. They were all related to people management!
As we were talking I found it curious that this is the same discussion that I had had with this manager last year and the year before. Probably even the year before that as well! And on reflection, whenever I speak one on one with managers, these same problems rear their heads. And this, year after year!
So it seems that a client of mine was right a few years ago when he said, “if it wasn’t that I have to employ people in the business, it would be quite fun to work here!” what a sad lament, that the very activity that is meant to make our lives as managers easier, is in fact the very activity that makes our lives more difficult. And stressful too!
So while we were talking and my mind was wandering down memory lane, this client says to me, “Mark, I find it very interesting that in just about every article that you have written and every course that you give, you stress the importance of employing the right people in the first place. What am I doing wrong?” I said to him “John, you have a strategy for just about every single thing in this business. But what is your recruiting strategy? Do you have one?”
“Recruiting strategy? Sure we have. We know how many people we are going to need where at any time, we have a succession plan in place, and we make sure that we keep the talent pipeline full.” “So where do you think is the problem?” I asked. John shrugged his shoulders and said “I’m not sure but we must be doing something wrong!”
Well that’s the bit that John had right – they were doing something wrong. They just didn’t know what it was. So John and I decided to take an afternoon and try to “unpick” this problem and find what was causing it.
This is what we found:
1)Recruiting is one of the most expensive and strategically sensitive activities in any company. The cost of recruiting the wrong person is huge and the cost of placing the wrong person in the wrong position is even higher!
2)We are in a hurry to fill a position. Recruit hastily, repent expensively.
3)Line managers are not directly involved in the recruiting process and decisions, and if they are they are inadequately trained in how to run the recruiting process as well as interviewing skills.
4)We don’t have a clear understanding of what it is that the prospective employee is going to be expected to do. The job of debtor’s clerk for example will be different from one company to the next.
5We tend to employ people because we like them. The “like factor” should be one of the reasons to appoint a person. Not the whole reason.
6)We employ people that have competence, but we ignore, or pay scant attention to the qualities that they would bring to the job and workplace. Competence tells us the person can do the job. Qualities tell us how well the person will do the job.
7)We don’t pay enough attention to the use of reference checks as a means of short listing potential candidates.
8)We don’t have a properly constructed interview process with questions designed to uncover the candidate’s strengths, weaknesses, abilities, qualities and ambitions.
When one employs the right people, the vast majority of the “Management Migraines” don’t even surface. Then managers can get on with what they are supposed to do – reach productivity targets through their people.
So a well-developed recruitment strategy and process goes a long way to relieving the “Management Migraines” that we as managers so often experience. Take the time to develop this strategy and process. The dividends that you will reap are priceless.
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Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Are We Human Or Are We Dancers?
Yesterday I was visiting a client that I have been working with for many years. They are in the “fleet” business and employ around 2500 people. The company runs technologically advanced systems that administer the processes within the business, and is very focussed on the development of their staff.
So we were chatting about the fact that the company is re-evaluating the training that is going on and dividing the training into two groups – “nice to have” and “have to have”. Obviously the idea is that the bulk of the training budget goes to the “have to have” group. Our discussion however was centred on the success, or lack thereof, of the training that was being done. There was a general concern amongst the management that, although a lot of money was being thrown at training, very little effect could be seen or felt.
Of course this company then tried to identify the usual culprits – training needs analysis incorrectly done, ineffective training providers, ineffective training courses, ineffective training manager, training the wrong people etc. And in reality, only one of those turned out to be the real problem. Which do you think it was? Yes you’re right! They were training the wrong people!
So this is where our discussion was centred - just how does one identify the right people to train? This company is having a particular issue with customer service, and no matter how much training is done, nothing changes. They are losing clients to their competitors and are struggling to stop the flow. So naturally their customer service training has been focussed on those people that interact directly with the customers. All of them, a good few hundred, have gone through the training, and very little has changed. They are still losing customers, and lots of them, due to bad service!
So where is the problem then? The issue that the company has, is bad customer service, so they are training the customer service people. In terms of a training needs analysis, this is the correct strategy. So what is wrong then? Why is the training not working?
Our discussion carried on for quite a while, and eventually we came to the following conclusions: firstly, excellent customer service is an attitude rather than a skill. Skills can be taught but the right attitude can’t. Secondly, they were training the wrong people! Wrong people? “But Mark, they have a customer service problem so they did customer service training with customer service people. How can that be wrong?” Well they targeted the training in the right direction, but when you do that you only hit the target. They need to hit the bull’s eye. When training hits the target it means that people get 2.5 or 3 out of a possible 5 on their performance appraisal. That might be good enough in certain areas of business, but when it comes to customer service, nothing short of 5 out of 5 will do. Anything short of 5 out of 5 and you are losing customers. In order to achieve the elusive 5 out of 5, a different strategy is needed.
Eventually we settled on a strategy and it is not an easy one. But then again, nothing of great value comes easily. So here is the strategy: 1) do customer service training with all the staff that have dealings with customers both internal and external. 2) Establish a “personal benefit” for those that reach the customer service “bulls eye” that you have established. 3) identify your “centres of influence”. Those people, not necessarily management, that staff respect and listen to, those people that have influence over the behaviour of the people that work in your company. Work with those “centres of influence” and get them to “buy in” to the “bull’s eye”. The attitude that they then show will be copied and mirrored by the rest.
OK, so now you want to know how to get “buy in” from the centres of influence. Well we need to first understand that where there is no consequence, people don’t change. There is no reason to, so why should they? You have already experienced this – no amount of talking or lecturing brings about change, but put a consequence in place, and change happens really quickly. So in this case, the consequence needs to be a benefit that is of value to the individual.
I’ll leave it to you to work out what that benefit will be. But rest assured that people don’t change attitudes because of training and discipline. They change attitudes because they see the appropriate attitude on display in people that they respect and admire, and because there is a personal benefit to themselves.
So why is the title of this article Are We Human or Are we Dancers? I borrowed that title from the song by the Killers, and when I heard that song it said to me that we are human beings that respond to human inputs. We are not dancers that work to a dance (our lives) that has been choreographed by someone else. We want to live our own lives and anything or anyone, including employers, need to add value to our lives in order to get the best from us.
So this company is now embarking on this new strategy. I’ll keep you posted.
If you would like to contact me, please send me an email on mark@markdeavall.com, or call me on 27 82 465 5481
So we were chatting about the fact that the company is re-evaluating the training that is going on and dividing the training into two groups – “nice to have” and “have to have”. Obviously the idea is that the bulk of the training budget goes to the “have to have” group. Our discussion however was centred on the success, or lack thereof, of the training that was being done. There was a general concern amongst the management that, although a lot of money was being thrown at training, very little effect could be seen or felt.
Of course this company then tried to identify the usual culprits – training needs analysis incorrectly done, ineffective training providers, ineffective training courses, ineffective training manager, training the wrong people etc. And in reality, only one of those turned out to be the real problem. Which do you think it was? Yes you’re right! They were training the wrong people!
So this is where our discussion was centred - just how does one identify the right people to train? This company is having a particular issue with customer service, and no matter how much training is done, nothing changes. They are losing clients to their competitors and are struggling to stop the flow. So naturally their customer service training has been focussed on those people that interact directly with the customers. All of them, a good few hundred, have gone through the training, and very little has changed. They are still losing customers, and lots of them, due to bad service!
So where is the problem then? The issue that the company has, is bad customer service, so they are training the customer service people. In terms of a training needs analysis, this is the correct strategy. So what is wrong then? Why is the training not working?
Our discussion carried on for quite a while, and eventually we came to the following conclusions: firstly, excellent customer service is an attitude rather than a skill. Skills can be taught but the right attitude can’t. Secondly, they were training the wrong people! Wrong people? “But Mark, they have a customer service problem so they did customer service training with customer service people. How can that be wrong?” Well they targeted the training in the right direction, but when you do that you only hit the target. They need to hit the bull’s eye. When training hits the target it means that people get 2.5 or 3 out of a possible 5 on their performance appraisal. That might be good enough in certain areas of business, but when it comes to customer service, nothing short of 5 out of 5 will do. Anything short of 5 out of 5 and you are losing customers. In order to achieve the elusive 5 out of 5, a different strategy is needed.
Eventually we settled on a strategy and it is not an easy one. But then again, nothing of great value comes easily. So here is the strategy: 1) do customer service training with all the staff that have dealings with customers both internal and external. 2) Establish a “personal benefit” for those that reach the customer service “bulls eye” that you have established. 3) identify your “centres of influence”. Those people, not necessarily management, that staff respect and listen to, those people that have influence over the behaviour of the people that work in your company. Work with those “centres of influence” and get them to “buy in” to the “bull’s eye”. The attitude that they then show will be copied and mirrored by the rest.
OK, so now you want to know how to get “buy in” from the centres of influence. Well we need to first understand that where there is no consequence, people don’t change. There is no reason to, so why should they? You have already experienced this – no amount of talking or lecturing brings about change, but put a consequence in place, and change happens really quickly. So in this case, the consequence needs to be a benefit that is of value to the individual.
I’ll leave it to you to work out what that benefit will be. But rest assured that people don’t change attitudes because of training and discipline. They change attitudes because they see the appropriate attitude on display in people that they respect and admire, and because there is a personal benefit to themselves.
So why is the title of this article Are We Human or Are we Dancers? I borrowed that title from the song by the Killers, and when I heard that song it said to me that we are human beings that respond to human inputs. We are not dancers that work to a dance (our lives) that has been choreographed by someone else. We want to live our own lives and anything or anyone, including employers, need to add value to our lives in order to get the best from us.
So this company is now embarking on this new strategy. I’ll keep you posted.
If you would like to contact me, please send me an email on mark@markdeavall.com, or call me on 27 82 465 5481
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Five "Must Do's" for Sales Managers
“Sales drives the company” is a phrase that we have all heard often. And it’s true – if we don’t have sales, we don’t have a business. Sales produces revenue and we are in business to produce revenue.
So with this thought in mind, we set out on a “journey” amongst our top 25 clients to see what they are doing in order to reach the sales revenue figures that are required by their sales budgets. The results were not surprising at all, and yet when we communicated them to the rest of our client base, there were some raised eyebrows!
The result of this journey was a simple answer – sales managers drive their sales. It is not the representative or salesperson that drives sales, but rather the manager. I don’t believe that this is in any way a revelation, but it is a fundamental of an effective sales team and deserves some exploration.
So the question then is this: “what does a sales manager do in order to drive sales?” Let’s see if we are able to answer that question.
1) Good sales managers recruit the right people – not everyone can be a sales person, just as not everyone can be an accountant or doctor or nuclear physicist. Good sales managers are very careful about who they employ. They look for people with zeal and hunger, with a high energy drive and an attitude of permanent optimism. Good sales people make good sales teams.
2) Good managers train their salespeople to close deals – too often the sales training provided is geared mainly toward product knowledge. This is necessary, but it doesn’t help that the salesperson is a product specialist and yet is unable to close deals. Companies don’t pay sales salaries for the knowledge that the sales person has. They pay for the deals closed
3) Good sales managers focus 80% of their time and attention on the prospecting pipeline of their salespeople – sales is not about techniques or tricks. Sales is a numbers game – the more customers I can get in front of, the more deals I will close. I don’t have to be a particularly good salesperson. I just have to push the numbers. So good sales managers understand “pipeline management” and apply it rigorously!
4) Good sales managers make sure that reward is equal to results – yes, I said results and not effort. A good sales manager manages effort, but rewards results. Because results create revenue!
5) Good sales managers cull their team ruthlessly – by its very nature a sales team is intolerant of poor performance. Good sales managers make sure that they cut out the poor performers at an early stage.
Five things that the sales managers in our top 25 companies are doing on a daily basis to ensure that sales budgets are being met. And these are the same things that top sales managers around the world are doing.
Sales managers are not there to close deals on behalf of poorly recruited and trained salespeople. Sales managers are employed to drive sales, the life blood of all businesses!
So with this thought in mind, we set out on a “journey” amongst our top 25 clients to see what they are doing in order to reach the sales revenue figures that are required by their sales budgets. The results were not surprising at all, and yet when we communicated them to the rest of our client base, there were some raised eyebrows!
The result of this journey was a simple answer – sales managers drive their sales. It is not the representative or salesperson that drives sales, but rather the manager. I don’t believe that this is in any way a revelation, but it is a fundamental of an effective sales team and deserves some exploration.
So the question then is this: “what does a sales manager do in order to drive sales?” Let’s see if we are able to answer that question.
1) Good sales managers recruit the right people – not everyone can be a sales person, just as not everyone can be an accountant or doctor or nuclear physicist. Good sales managers are very careful about who they employ. They look for people with zeal and hunger, with a high energy drive and an attitude of permanent optimism. Good sales people make good sales teams.
2) Good managers train their salespeople to close deals – too often the sales training provided is geared mainly toward product knowledge. This is necessary, but it doesn’t help that the salesperson is a product specialist and yet is unable to close deals. Companies don’t pay sales salaries for the knowledge that the sales person has. They pay for the deals closed
3) Good sales managers focus 80% of their time and attention on the prospecting pipeline of their salespeople – sales is not about techniques or tricks. Sales is a numbers game – the more customers I can get in front of, the more deals I will close. I don’t have to be a particularly good salesperson. I just have to push the numbers. So good sales managers understand “pipeline management” and apply it rigorously!
4) Good sales managers make sure that reward is equal to results – yes, I said results and not effort. A good sales manager manages effort, but rewards results. Because results create revenue!
5) Good sales managers cull their team ruthlessly – by its very nature a sales team is intolerant of poor performance. Good sales managers make sure that they cut out the poor performers at an early stage.
Five things that the sales managers in our top 25 companies are doing on a daily basis to ensure that sales budgets are being met. And these are the same things that top sales managers around the world are doing.
Sales managers are not there to close deals on behalf of poorly recruited and trained salespeople. Sales managers are employed to drive sales, the life blood of all businesses!
Thursday, July 14, 2011
French are the most productive people in the world
I found this article. Makes for interesting reading
French: The Most Productive People In The World
By Vincent Fernando and John Carney
A new survey from UBS has shown that the French continue to work the least amount of hours per year in the world. Once again, the French have blown away the competition.
People work an average of 1,902 hours per year in the surveyed cities but they work much longer in Asian and Middle Eastern cities... People in Lyon and Paris, by contrast, spend the least amount of time at work according to the global comparison: 1,582 and 1,594 hours per year respectively.
Upon seeing this data, some might criticize the French for being lazy, but that misses the point completely. The real message here is that the French are likely some of the most productive people in the entire world.
Think about it. Nationmaster ranks France as #18 in terms of GDP per capita, at $36,500 per person, yet France works much less than most developed nations. They achieve their high standard of living while working 16% less hours than the average world citizen, and almost 25% than their Asian peers as per UBS. Plus, if you visit France you'll also realize that their actual standard of living is probably much higher than GDP numbers would indicate.
Thus, if one were to divide France's GDP per capita by actual hours worked, you'd probably find that the French are achieving some of the highest returns on work-hours invested. Labor Alpha, if you will.
We can actually calculate this Labor Alpha using statistics from Nation Master.
France has $36,500 GDP/Capita and works 1,453 hours per year. This equates to a GDP/Capita/Hour of $25.10. Americans, on the other hand, have $44,150 GDP/Capita but work 1,792 hours per year. Thus Americans only achieve $24.60 of GDP/Capita/Hour.
This puts the French Labor Alpha at about $0.50 GDP/Capita/Hour over the US. It may sound small at first, but add that up across millions of people, and a few decades. Now you've built a lesson for the rest of the world to learn.
Winning is not about working hard. It's about working smart... and less. As the French know well.
French: The Most Productive People In The World
By Vincent Fernando and John Carney
A new survey from UBS has shown that the French continue to work the least amount of hours per year in the world. Once again, the French have blown away the competition.
People work an average of 1,902 hours per year in the surveyed cities but they work much longer in Asian and Middle Eastern cities... People in Lyon and Paris, by contrast, spend the least amount of time at work according to the global comparison: 1,582 and 1,594 hours per year respectively.
Upon seeing this data, some might criticize the French for being lazy, but that misses the point completely. The real message here is that the French are likely some of the most productive people in the entire world.
Think about it. Nationmaster ranks France as #18 in terms of GDP per capita, at $36,500 per person, yet France works much less than most developed nations. They achieve their high standard of living while working 16% less hours than the average world citizen, and almost 25% than their Asian peers as per UBS. Plus, if you visit France you'll also realize that their actual standard of living is probably much higher than GDP numbers would indicate.
Thus, if one were to divide France's GDP per capita by actual hours worked, you'd probably find that the French are achieving some of the highest returns on work-hours invested. Labor Alpha, if you will.
We can actually calculate this Labor Alpha using statistics from Nation Master.
France has $36,500 GDP/Capita and works 1,453 hours per year. This equates to a GDP/Capita/Hour of $25.10. Americans, on the other hand, have $44,150 GDP/Capita but work 1,792 hours per year. Thus Americans only achieve $24.60 of GDP/Capita/Hour.
This puts the French Labor Alpha at about $0.50 GDP/Capita/Hour over the US. It may sound small at first, but add that up across millions of people, and a few decades. Now you've built a lesson for the rest of the world to learn.
Winning is not about working hard. It's about working smart... and less. As the French know well.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
So the local government elections are over and the ANC is crowing over their "victory". All well and good. However, I have been all over ther web, listened to newscasts and will buy the newspapers today, and nowhere can I find the individual percentages in the provinces to denote by how much the ANC won.
What we as South African's (who are still politically immature) need to understand is that it does not matter who wins an election. What matters is by how much they win. Its all about the balance of power. Effective governance only happens where we have an effective opposition.
So I would like to know the figures for the individual municipal areas. If anyone has them, please send them to me at mark@markdeavall.com
What we as South African's (who are still politically immature) need to understand is that it does not matter who wins an election. What matters is by how much they win. Its all about the balance of power. Effective governance only happens where we have an effective opposition.
So I would like to know the figures for the individual municipal areas. If anyone has them, please send them to me at mark@markdeavall.com
Monday, May 2, 2011
I Think Therefore ...........
For over twenty years now, I have been working with managers, helping them to improve their management skills. The area that we have focused on, and what managers get paid their salaries for, is the ability to extract the required productivity from his or her workers.
Many people and consulting companies are involved in this area, and have come up with diverse processes from Neuro Linguistic Programming, through Performance Management Processes to Balanced Scorecard. All appear to be great in their own right, but if so, why are we as a management team, still struggling with productivity issues in the workplace? Seems weird, when we have access to all the great thinkers and managers in the world, and we are able to learn from their lives.
John Maxwell in his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, talks about the Law of the Lid. This law says that the effectiveness of one’s business will never rise above the effectiveness of one’s leadership ability. He’s right. Effective business stands or falls on effective leadership. We all know that to be true, and so we add Leadership Training to the mix together with NLP, Balanced Scorecard and so on.
But I would like to throw another thought out for your consideration. In the 17th century the French philosopher, René Descartes, came up with “the explanation for it all” - “I Think, Therefore I Am”. This statement has been the source of fierce debate. It’s the old “which came first” story – the chicken or the egg.
I however would like to offer an alternative interpretation that I believe fits our conundrum regarding extracting productivity from our employees. I feel that this statement is a “fill in the blanks” statement. “I think……, therefore I am……”. Let’s try this – I think I’m tired, therefore I am tired. I think I’m stressed, therefore I am stressed. I think I’m overworked therefore I am overworked. I think people don’t like me therefore I try too hard to be liked. The list goes on and on.
Maybe I’m taking some sort of literary license here, but the message that I want to get across is this. It doesn’t matter what training we do, and what systems we put into place, a person’s productivity will never rise above the level of their thoughts. Therefore, in order to bring about changes in productivity, we need to bring about changes in the thoughts of the people that work for us.
We see this concept at play every day. It’s what the unions use to justify their existence. They convince workers that they are hard done by and as a result have to strike so that they can get more money, better benefits and so on. So the thought is, “I think my employer is treating me unfairly, therefore I will go on strike”. It all starts with a thought. “I think……, therefore I am……..”.
In this country right now, we as business are in a battle for the “thoughts” of our workers. We are battling against a sense of entitlement, unions with a vested interest in keeping people in a poverty cycle and a government that makes promises rather than does anything. If we are to increase the productivity of the individual, we need to be a bigger influence on their thoughts than what the outside influences are.
Only by increasing the level of thinking in the individual, will we be able to increase the level of productivity.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
The Ant and the Grasshopper
Two Different Versions ...
Two Different Morals
OLD VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE OLD STORY:
Be responsible for yourself!
MODERN VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.
ETv, Carte Blanche, News 24, The Sowetan and Ebrahim Patel show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
South Africa is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Oprah Winfrey appears on her show with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green...'
ANCYL stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.”
Then Bishop Tutu has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake.
Minister B O Dlamini condemns the ant and blames Apartheid, Helen Zille, the Banks and big business for the grasshopper's plight.
Jeremy Cronin and Zwelenzima Vavi exclaim in an interview with Debra Patta that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the Department of Labour drafts the Wealth Sharing Bill and Anti-Ant Bill retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant is then fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government and given to the grasshopper.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.
The ant has left the garden and gone to where his hard work and effort is welcome.
The grasshopper allows his friends and family to move into the house, who then terrorize the once prosperous and peaceful, neighbourhood. Property values drop as the peace loving citizens sell their homes and move to walled and secure estates to be safe from the grasshoppers. The grasshoppers friends move into the once prosperous neighbourhood and soon it becomes a slum.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be careful how you vote.
Two Different Morals
OLD VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE OLD STORY:
Be responsible for yourself!
MODERN VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.
ETv, Carte Blanche, News 24, The Sowetan and Ebrahim Patel show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
South Africa is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Oprah Winfrey appears on her show with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green...'
ANCYL stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.”
Then Bishop Tutu has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake.
Minister B O Dlamini condemns the ant and blames Apartheid, Helen Zille, the Banks and big business for the grasshopper's plight.
Jeremy Cronin and Zwelenzima Vavi exclaim in an interview with Debra Patta that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the Department of Labour drafts the Wealth Sharing Bill and Anti-Ant Bill retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant is then fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government and given to the grasshopper.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.
The ant has left the garden and gone to where his hard work and effort is welcome.
The grasshopper allows his friends and family to move into the house, who then terrorize the once prosperous and peaceful, neighbourhood. Property values drop as the peace loving citizens sell their homes and move to walled and secure estates to be safe from the grasshoppers. The grasshoppers friends move into the once prosperous neighbourhood and soon it becomes a slum.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be careful how you vote.
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