Progressive Baker's Dilemma

We had our first afternoon visit to the home of a South African family today, and it was fantastic. Lara is the room mom in Maya’s 6th grade class. She and her husband own a bakery that makes delicious, natural artisanal breads. Michael is from Germany, and came to South Africa in 1985 to work as a chef in a hotel. He has since worked in a number of 5-star restaurants and hotels, and a few years ago, started his own baking business. He now employs 25 people, and his bakery runs 7 days/week, 22 hours a day. They have 52 regular customers that they deliver to each day, and another hundred or so who come to the factory’s own coffee shop. They also sell at a farmer’s market on Saturday morning, so they are busy. We felt honored that they invited us over to spend Sunday afternoon with them, as we know how busy life must be for the local baker!

Michael is a very interesting and passionate man, with a deep spiritual practice. He is a follower of Saibaba, and Indian spiritual leader (http://www.saibaba.org/) , and has a beautiful meditation room off the living room. The outside of their home has a sign saying: “om shanti,” or PEACE. You could tell that Michael was deeply committed to his craft as a baker, and was very proud of the quality of the natural ingredients that he used, and the “craftsmanship” that all his breads show.

At the same time, Michael was really struggling in his business, even though he was pretty successful financially, he was struggling with the goal of inspiring a commitment to excellence and pride in craftsmanship in his workers. He was frustrated not being able to figure out how to get his workers to come on time, to work with the same degree of focus and commitment that he expects to see. And, he is paying his workers well, in relation to the local economy, and is coming from a very progressive, and spiritual place. He recognizes the struggles that his workers have living in the townships, having long commutes, having to support many un-employed family members, struggling with crime and drugs and horrible living conditions. Still, he expects to be able to inspire a sense of pride and commitment to this special product that they are producing. However, they are not connected, they are not feeling committed, nor inspired. It breaks his heart.

He said: “Not one time since I have run my business has one person come up to me and asked, ‘please teach me how to be a baker. I want to learn this business.’ I would love to share what I know, but nobody has ever asked.” He then went on to use words like “entitlement” to characterize the feeling of his workers. That they weren’t willing to show the commitment, and do the hard work, but rather, felt entitled to getting a bigger piece of the action!

My response was this: “They ARE entitled! They HAVE been ripped-off over decades by this system of apartheid, oppressed, marginalized, treated like dirt. They ARE entitled to a bigger piece of the action. BUT, should this entitlement get worked out in their current employment relationship? Should the decades of mis-treatment be remedied at the expense of running a profitable business? Is the gulf that has been create so huge, that no individual sees themselves as worthy of being mentored by Michael?

There is so much going into this puzzle, but it seems at the core of this process of turning what was two very separate societies into one. Lots of bridges to be built, and unfortunately, very little common building blocks to call on.

Blog ya later.

Seth./.