Move Your Bus

Move Your Bus illustrates the different kinds of groups in organizations, how leaders can inspire those groups, and what individuals can do to become highly valued, productive members of the organizations they serve.

First of all, what’s this bus thing even about? “Moving your bus” is a metaphor Ron came up with, in order to teach organizations how they can make progress and what working together looks like.

Have you ever watched The Flintstones? It’s one of the most popular cartoon shows of all time, superseded only by The Simpsons. Because it’s set in the stone age, all cars and buses on the show work through footwork – only if all passengers run, the bus moves forward.

Organizations work the same way: everyone has a role to play, some bigger, some smaller, but only when all team members work together and give their best can you really move forward.

Even in elementary school classrooms, Ron has always believed in high expectations being a big part of that. Set the bar too low, and people won’t even bother trying. But when you set it high, you also have to clearly communicate what you expect from people and hold them accountable to it, so that they have a chance to deliver.

In a company that means managers should request specific outputs and encourage people to work in small doses. For example, a written, two-page report about last month’s sales performance within two days is a challenging, but clearly defined goal.

Having high expectations is good, but remember: what high expectations are is different for everyone. That two-page report might be an appropriate challenge for a junior sales manager, too easy for the head of sales and almost impossible to write for a call center agent. Sticking with the bus metaphor, Ron defines five different groups in organizations: The driver(s), who steers the bus and pushes everyone forward – these are usually the managers. The runners, who are the top performers, work hard and always have great, creative input on how to move on. The joggers, who are diligent and consistent workers, but only switch into high gear occasionally. The walkers, who are still steady, but rather slow, don’t like change too much and sometimes slow the bus down. The riders, who only run when someone’s watching them and otherwise use their intelligence to hide behind the crowd. As you can see, the span of motivation levels, work ethic and performance level within these five groups is huge – so naturally, you’ll have to deal differently with all these groups – some of which might move up, others might move down, and some will eventually have to get off the bus altogether to…