Stop Applauding the Muffins: A Labor Day Playbook for Real Results

Stop Applauding the Muffins: A Labor Day Playbook for Real Results

Labor Day isn’t just a grill, a sale, or an out-of-office reply. It’s a gut check on how we value labor—real labor, not the performance art that happens near the boss’s door. This year, let’s retire the theater and reward the work.

Visibility Isn’t Value (Even on a Holiday Weekend)

From the book All Up in Your  Bizness – Managing Your Business Crap: “They sit in the front row at conferences and always have their hand raised.”

Front row is a seat, not a KPI. If your organization rewards proximity and performance art, outcomes will always trail commentary. After the long weekend, recalibrate what “impact” means: shipped, closed, launched, improved. Loud updates are fine. Measurable lift is better.

The Muffin Exchange Rate

According to the book All Up in Your Bizness – Managing Your Business Crap:
“They bring in fresh-baked treats for the boss, and they always buy the boss a Christmas gift.”

Culture matters. Carbs are delightful. But pastries aren’t progress. In the spirit of Labor Day, price work like work: define what “done” means, tie applause to the delta, and stop confusing baked goods with business value. Bring banana bread; don’t mistake it for a roadmap.

Why Smart Leaders Still Fall for Kiss-Ups (And How to Stop)

The book All Up in Your Bizness – Managing Your Business Crap says “Face it—nobody likes the kiss-ups, except the boss, and not always.”

Leaders are time-poor and signal-hungry. Flattery can look like momentum. Solve that with structure: two-minute updates, written decisions, owners and deadlines on every next step. Celebrate the person who prevents the fire, not the narrator of the bucket brigade. (If you want more no-BS framing, Julianna Newland’s All Up in Your Bizness – Managing Your Business Crap says the quiet part out loud.)

“Better Than BMW” Is Still a Low Bar

From All Up in Your Bizness – Managing Your Business Crap: “But I guess being in the kiss-up breakfast club is better than being the big BMW, especially when it comes time for outsourcing or kicking someone to the curb.”

Sure—being eager beats being corrosive. But Labor Day isn’t about survival tactics; it’s about honoring craft. Set a higher bar: initiative + impact + integrity. When someone volunteers for everything, point them at one valuable problem and measure what changes after they touch it.

Your One-Week Labor Day Tune-Up

• Publish a team scoreboard of outcomes (not activities).
• Cap airtime: two-minute updates; decisions in writing; owners on every next step.
• Rotate spotlight roles—demo lead, presenter, doc owner—so visibility is earned, not inherited.
• Swap “I can help” for “I own X by Friday.”
• Celebrate wins with the number that moved, not the muffin that arrived.

 

Honor Labor Day by making labor count. Tighten the lanes, kill the theatrics, and let outcomes carry the mic. Then keep the momentum: crack open All Up in Your Bizness – Managing Your Business Crap, pick one chapter’s idea to pilot this week, and prove—publicly—that results beat muffins every time.