[Excerpt] I learned these habits from a former colleague, Jessica Govea Thourborne, who developed them when she was one of the founding members of the United Farm Workers Union with Caesar Chavez. Cancer took Jessica from us, but her legacy lives on and there are hundreds of dedicated union and community activists inspired by her who have adopted her good work habits

Margolies, Ken A

English

[Excerpt] I learned these habits from a former colleague, Jessica Govea Thourborne, who developed them when she was one of the founding members of the United Farm Workers Union with Caesar Chavez. Cancer took Jessica from us, but her legacy lives on and there are hundreds of dedicated union and community activists inspired by her who have adopted her good work habits.Margolies34_Three_good_steward_habits.pdf: 337 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Margolies, Ken A.

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Three Good Steward Habits

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Articles and Chapters ILR Collection 
2011 
Three Good Steward Habits 
Ken A. Margolies 
Cornell University, kam47@cornell.edu 
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Three Good Steward Habits 
Abstract 
[Excerpt] I learned these habits from a former colleague, Jessica Govea Thourborne, who developed them 
when she was one of the founding members of the United Farm Workers Union with Caesar Chavez. 
Cancer took Jessica from us, but her legacy lives on and there are hundreds of dedicated union and 
community activists inspired by her who have adopted her good work habits. 
Keywords 
union stewards, union meetings, leadership, labor movement 
Disciplines 
Labor Relations | Unions 
Comments 
Suggested Citation 
Margolies, K. A. (2011). Three good steward habits [Electronic version]. Steward Update Newsletter 22(6), 
4. 
Required Publisher Statement 
© Union Communication Services, Inc. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. 
This article is available at DigitalCommons@ILR: https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/542 
STEWARD UPDATE NEWSLETTER 
Three Good Steward Habits 
Habits can be good or bad. Developing good work habits can make a steward more successful. 
Here are three such habits that have been 
found to be particularly effective. 
Brief — Do — Debrief 
Before every meeting, task or event of 
any consequence always meet with others 
involved or with yourself if it is an indi-
vidual project and "brief." This means 
reviewing the goal of the activity, what to 
expect and a plan for how to proceed. If it 
is a group effort the plan should always 
clearly define the role everyone will play 
and contingencies for dealing with unfore-
seen occurrences. When everyone is clear 
on the "brief then it is time to "do." 
In doing the "do" the main task is to 
follow the plan developed in the "brief" 
but also to be aware of how it is going and 
taking notes if necessary to facilitate an 
evaluation during the debrief. 
In the debrief, after reviewing what 
happened and how everyone felt about 
the outcome, make sure there is an evalu-
ation of whether the goal was reached and 
why or why not. The most important part 
of the "debrief is determining what was 
learned from the "do" and identifying the 
next steps. 
By following the "brief— do — 
debrief habit you will find that goals are 
more often met, people in teams develop 
better working relationships, and, perhaps 
most importantly, there is a constant 
process of learning. In the current difficult 
times when things change very quickly 
stewards must always be learning from 
their experiences to keep up and meet 
new challenges. 
Start and End Meet ings on Time 
Many people try to make meetings start 
and end on time with limited success 
which often diminishes as time goes on. 
However, it can be done with a lot of 
work and persistence even within organi-
zations with long-standing cultures of 
never doing so. In many unions the fact 
that meetings always start late is a running 
joke, but one that not everyone finds 
amusing. 
In making a change the first step is 
very clearly communicating that 9 am 
really means 9 am and not 9:30, 9:45 or 10 
am. Then it is crucial that you actual start 
the meeting at 9 regardless of how many 
people arc present. If you do this consis-
tently people will see that you are serious 
about starting on time and gradually you 
can change the culture concerning meet-
ings, at least when it comes to meetings 
you run. 
In doing this it is important that 
everyone understand that coming to meet-
ings late without a very good reason is dis-
respectful to you and everyone else at the 
meeting. Those who come on time will be 
your allies in sticking to the schedule and 
they will apply peer pressure to get others 
to comply. Of course, your meetings need 
to be well-planned and run efficiently. If 
you show enthusiasm and make people 
feel welcomed and valued they will look 
forward to meetings rather than avoiding 
them. 
Always S h o w and D e m a n d Respect 
Just as framing the issue of coming on 
time to meetings as an issue of respect 
helps get people to change their habit of 
coming late, demanding and showing it in 
everything you do will increase your 
effectiveness. Just talking about respect is 
not enough, people need to see that you 
not only demand respect but always show 
the utmost respect for others. 
You must treat everyone with equal 
respect regardless of what languages they 
speak, how much education and degrees 
they might have and whether they are an 
officer in the union or a new member. In 
particular show respect and appreciation 
in public when people are dedicated, fol-
low through on what they say they will do 
and work as a team. If they do not act in 
those ways talk to people respectfully in 
private about why that happened. As a 
result, people will be more motivated to 
contribute to the union. 
I learned these habits from a former 
colleague, Jessica Govea Thourborne, 
who developed them when she was one 
of the founding members of the United 
Farm Workers Union with Caesar Chavez. 
Cancer took Jessica from us, but her lega-
cy lives on and there are hundreds of ded-
icated union and community activists 
inspired by her who have adopted her 
good work habits. 
— Ken Margolies. The writer is on the Labor Extension faculty 
of Cornell University. 
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