3 Questions for Elizabeth Gingerich, business law professor and editor, Journal of Values-Based Leadership

Elizabeth Gingerich, Valparaiso University

Elizabeth Gingerich joined Valparaiso University’s College of Business Administration as a business law professor after a substantial legal career advising and representing corporate clients. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, she serves as the editor-in-chief of the College’s Journal of Values-Based Leadership, which promotes “ethical and moral leadership and behavior by serving as a forum for ideas and the sharing of ‘best practices.'”

I was introduced to Elizabeth in 2008, when the JVBL published my article, “Workplace Bullying and Ethical Leadership.” Since then, I’ve periodically visited the journal’s website to review current and past issues, available online without charge (latest issue here; back issues here). Elizabeth kindly agreed to be interviewed about her work and that of the JVBL:

1. Before entering academe, you had an extensive career as a business lawyer providing legal advice to corporations. How does that experience inform your teaching and work in shaping the journal’s content?

When I began teaching in 2001, I had already practiced law for nearly 20 years and thought I was done.  After a month, however, I became somewhat unsettled with my isolated status and knew I had to step back in – at least part-time.  The academic world helps in the courtroom and the continued practice of law keeps one sharp in the classroom. The tricky part is striking a healthy balance.

I personally would not want to be taught by someone who did not have real world experience.  Thus, as laws change and cases are decided that especially affect my business clients, I take that new knowledge, analyze it, and usually add it to my lectures.

The combination of learning, applying, analyzing, and finally teaching has given me a wider perspective of global business and its ethical and legal implications.  The combination of continuous learning and teaching what I am practicing also places me in a favorable position to conduct interviews of notable business leaders for the JVBL.

2. Valparaiso University embraces its Lutheran heritage. How do questions of faith inform or engage the mission of the journal?

The overall mission of the journal is to disseminate articles and case studies which demonstrate either the practice of and/or the need to adopt business strategies that go beyond the sole pursuit of the bottom line.  Principled decision-making ostensibly requires consideration of stakeholders’ needs, the implementation of socially responsible practices, and the adoption of sound environmental stewardship policies.

Many of the JVBL’s interviewees have included the influence of faith and religious training in formulating and implementing their respective business practices.  I have termed this “benevolent capitalism.”

3. Readers of this blog tend to be very interested in workplace issues. What does the term “values-based leadership” mean for employment relations?

Lack of an alienating hierarchy. Appreciation of all employees’ efforts.  Seeking advice as to the direction of the company from all workers.  Rewarding those who participate accordingly.

With respect to the interviews I have conducted for the JVBL, unionization and other forms of collective bargaining are simply not needed where this meaningful and continuous feedback and interaction firmly exist. Some of the more prominent examples include Interface Global (Atlanta), Whole Foods (Austin), Lands’ End (before it was sold to Sears), and Playpumps International (Johannesburg, S.A.).

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Starting in 2012, “3 Questions” is a regular feature presenting short interviews with notable individuals whose work and activities overlap with major themes of this blog. Go here to access all interviews in the series.

Raising workers’ health insurance payments for bad lifestyle habits

One of the unfortunate by-products of our messed up health care system is how some employers are raising employee health insurance contributions for those who engage in lifestyles deemed unhealthy.

They may smoke. They may eat too much or the wrong foods. They may not participate in preventive care. As Reed Abelson reported for the New York Times last November:

More and more employers are demanding that workers who smoke, are overweight or have high cholesterol shoulder a greater share of their health care costs, a shift toward penalizing employees with unhealthy lifestyles rather than rewarding good habits.

This isn’t a screed against personal responsibility. And I understand why employers are assessing options to lasso out-of-control health insurance costs.

But what I see here is a scary slippery slope, one that leads to certain individuals bearing a heavier burden of their health care costs based on the supposed riskiness of everyday conduct.

It may sound good until you apply it evenhandedly: The person who has no problem imposing higher premiums on smokers may forget that the steaks and burgers he enjoys provide reason for raising his premiums, too. And what if vegetarian who doesn’t mind sticking it the carnivore is not getting recommended amounts of protein in her diet? Does this mean that she should pony up higher payments as well?

In addition, if we’re going to play this game, what responsibility do companies that market some of these products bear for promoting these habits — the cigarette makers, fast-food restaurants, and beer companies? They know darn well that their products will have some negative health effects.

And what about bad employers that create stressful working conditions that, in turn, cause some workers to engage in less-than-healthy habits? If we’re preaching responsibility here, shouldn’t they pay a higher share of our health care costs?

Health insurance coverage helps to protect us against the costs of being human, including our own foibles and weaknesses. America remains one of the world’s wealthiest nations, and we have the capacity to provide affordable, quality health care for all. This type of business practice, however, is takes us in the opposite, more punitive, direction.

New Boomer reality: From “shop ’til you drop” to “work ’til you drop”

A generation that spanned the “shop ’til you drop” decades of constant economic growth and burgeoning consumer debt is now looking at a tougher era of “work ’til you drop.”

John Rogers of the Associated Press (via Yahoo! News, here) examines the lot of some 78 million American Baby Boomers who have experienced “the misfortune of approaching retirement age at a time when stock market crashes diminished their 401(k) nest eggs, companies began eliminating defined benefit pensions in record numbers and previously unimagined technical advances all but eliminated entire job descriptions from travel agent to telephone operator.”

The message from job experts: Keep working if you can. For example, Rogers shares these observations from Ed Lawler of USC’s business school:

With unions no longer in a strong position to fight for benefits like pensions, with jobs disappearing or going overseas, and with Gen Xers and even younger Millennial Generation members coveting their jobs, Lawler warns this is no time for boomers to quit and allow the skills they’ve spent a lifetime building to atrophy.

“My advice is above all don’t retire,” he says. “If you like your job at all, hold onto it. Because getting back in in this era is essentially impossible.”

Lawler’s advice, while eminently sensible, raises issues. For example, workers in physically demanding jobs may find their bodies giving way even if they’re not in a position to retire. Also, the longer workers stay in the workforce beyond traditional retirement age, the fewer the opportunities will be for new entrants to the labor market.

In sum, I don’t think we have any easy answers to these ongoing challenges. The days of painless economic options, if we ever truly had them, are gone. But I do hope we face our choices before panic and desperation set in, because if we wait until that point, it will get very, very scary. While I don’t think the situation will be as bad as what we’re seeing in Greece right now, we should look there for some cautionary tales.

Related posts

Labor Day Reader 2011: Stormy weather for workers (2011)

Apocalypse tomorrow: The debt ceiling crisis and Social Security (2011)

When Boomers retire (or try to): America’s coming train wreck (2010)

Jobs, Unemployment, and the Great Recession (2010)

A plea for art as vocation and artists as leaders

Kayhan Irani

What if our society made more room for artistic expression as a form of vocation and recognized more artists as leaders? Those are among the questions raised by Kayhan Irani, a self-styled “artivist” based in New York who uses her artistic and creative gifts to advance social change.

Kayhan has been a dear friend since 2004, when I invited her to Boston to present “We’ve Come Undone,” her compelling one-woman play about the challenges confronting immigrant women in the post-9/11 era. Since then, I’ve watched her define her vocational role and win plaudits for her artistic work, including a 2010 New York Emmy for a 9-episode educational television drama for immigrant New Yorkers and co-editorship of a book about the use of storytelling to advance social change. (Go here for her interesting and impressive bio.)

Yesterday on her blog, Kayhan asked readers to consider how art (of all types) can be sustaining work and how artists can serve as societal leaders. I wanted to share some of that with you and to offer a few responses.

Art as vocation

Kayhan first takes issue with stereotypes about artists and with assumptions that artistic work should not be a sustaining form of vocation:

The messages that are broadcast in our society about artists are that we are irresponsible, stupid, drug addicts, mentally ill, have questionable morals; and that art is frivolous, a diversion, not serious work, it’s only for some people, it’s stupid, and can’t pay the bills.  In order to maintain the status quo, we need artists to remain on the fringes of society, barely visible, always teetering on the brink of poverty and irrelevance.

These messages get enforced from a very early age.  Imagine an adult asking you, with pleasure, if you are going to be a lawyer or a dancer when you grow up; what about a firefighter or a painter?  From a very young age, we are steered away from art-making as a life choice.

Artists as leaders

Kayhan concludes by urging us to consider how artistic leadership can be a force for positive social change:

And that brings me to my main point: art and creativity are the most powerful forces we have for liberation.

Art can bring people together.  We don’t even need to speak the same language.

Art can make a way out of no way.  When people are living in oppressive situations, artists can help imagine a way out.  The fight for another world has to imagine that the impossible is possible.

Artists never stop questioning.  Creativity means to use your senses to engage in a process of inquiry.

So let the artists lead us.  Let us recognize that they already do!

Spot on

Kayhan’s call for a world where artistic expression helps us to envision better communities and lives sounds pretty good to me. And it sure would be nice if it was provided by artists who are able to earn a decent living from their work.

I’m not suggesting that we live without formal structures or ditch anything that smacks of “businesslike.” After all, as a lawyer and law professor, I believe that a world without the rule of law would be a pretty scary one. (I’m not exactly enamored with the legal system we have, but that’s for other posts.) And I fully acknowledge that enterprise and technology can bring us some neat stuff, such as the computer I’m using to produce this article.

However, we have got things way, way out of balance. In particular, the financial insanity that led us to the economic meltdown should have prompted a deeper questioning of basic values and major institutions, but I fear we are squandering that opportunity as we yearn for a “recovery” that puts us in a position to do it all over again.

In the meantime, many artists who have been dependent upon outside funding and non-profit sponsorship for their work are struggling even more.

New ways

So…to Kayhan’s eloquent plea I’ll add the need for societal structures that enable artistic work and are not as subject to the boom-and-bust cycles of our casino economy. I confess that I haven’t made all the “third way” connections between this and other forms of sustainable, community-oriented initiatives and enterprises, but I’m sure others have done so. Surely we cannot repeat the mess we’re in, right? Right?

Burnout in the non-profit sector

In a thought-provoking and important piece for AlterNet, psychologist Michael Bader examines the common phenomenon of burnout in progressive organizations:

Progressive leaders, activists and organizers don’t take care of themselves very well. They get burned out and either don’t know, don’t care, or don’t know how to fix it. . . . It undermines their energy, passion and imagination, and it spreads like a virus through their workplaces and families. Almost every aspect of their lives takes a hit–health, relationships with friends and family, creativity, judgment, concentration, and mood.

Bader points to chronic understaffing, the burdens of constantly fighting defensive wars in an age of right-wing power, and a self-sacrificing “martyr culture” as contributing to burnout among progressive change agents.

Prescriptively, he draws upon lessons from organizational psychology and coaching to recommend how to address burnout, while urging that any fixes must “start with self-compassion and an ethic of self-care.”

Non-profits generally

It strikes me that Bader’s excellent commentary applies to the non-profit sector generally. I don’t necessarily equate “non-profit” with progressive political leanings, but I definitely see the connections between non-profits and dedication to cause-oriented work.

Non-profit employment attracts those who are drawn to changing society for the better. This can be a good thing: How many people get to earn a living doing something they believe in? However, it also feeds burnout tendencies that are exacerbated during difficult times. And nowadays, this is a brutal time for all but the most privileged non-profit organizations.

Bader’s call for an ethic of self-care may seem elusive to those who are fighting the good fight, but if you find yourself in this situation, take a look at his article and share it with others.

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Related posts

Workplace bullying in the non-profit sector (2011)

When the bullying comes from a board member (2011)

Next on the economic hit list: Public and non-profit sectors (2009)

New podcast: Therapeutic jurisprudence and employment law

Therapeutic jurisprudence is a body of legal thought that asks how law, legal practice, and legal education can promote psychologically healthy outcomes. In other words, “TJ,” as we call it, favors a legal system that leads our heads to better places.

In a short podcast, I describe therapeutic jurisprudence and relate it to employment law. You can access it, without charge, from the podcast series page of the New Workplace Institute, here.

Also, if you want to learn more:

Law review articles

In recent years, I’ve written several law review articles that incorporate insights from TJ:

Human Dignity and American Employment Law – University of Richmond Law Review (2009)

Employment Law as If People Mattered: Bringing Therapeutic Jurisprudence into the Workplace — Florida Coastal Law Review (2010)

Therapeutic Jurisprudence and the Practice of Legal Scholarship – University of Memphis Law Review (2010)

Blog posts

TJ-related themes appear frequently in this blog. Here are three examples:

Workplace disputes and alternative dispute resolution (2011)

Bullied at work, then bullied by the legal system (2009)

The quest for healthier approaches to practicing law (2009)

Recipe for healthy employee relations: Encourage speech, nurture civility, and prohibit abuse

Okay, I’m thinking out loud here, but I’ve been pondering the lines between promoting positive organizational cultures and drawing clear distinctions on when certain abusive behaviors call for sanctions.

In the U.S., the omnipresence of at-will employment — the right to hire and fire for any reason or no reason at all — and the low density of labor union membership means that most employers enjoy wide latitude to develop and implement employee relations policies and practices.

Organizations can, if they wish, clamp down on employee speech, encourage cutthroat competition, and bully workers relentlessly. Much of this will be legal, given the weaknesses of worker protections beyond employment discrimination laws.

Of course, most of us know that such practices are a recipe for disaster, or at least guarantee an underperforming, low-morale workplace. With that in mind, let’s set out a few basic parameters for something better:

1. Encourage speech — The late Peter Drucker, management guru extraordinaire, nailed it in his book Managing for the Future (1992), where he extolled the virtues of employee input and participation in problem solving. Drucker urged that “partnership with the responsible worker is the only way” to succeed in today’s knowledge and service economy.

Worker silence is a sign that many have withdrawn emotionally from the broader enterprise and are doing what they have to do to survive. An organization that encourages a robust, honest exchange of ideas and feedback is much better off than one that sends the opposite signal.

But be forewarned: Once someone is punished for stating her opinion or offering constructive criticism, trust can easily disintegrate. This has to be a “walk the talk” commitment if it is to flourish.

2. Nurture civility — Civility, fairness, and genuine inclusion should be practiced by management rather than preached. It’s all about creating a culture based on actual, observable practice and conduct.

However, imposing company civility or speech codes is problematic. The give and take of ordinary human interactions needs to make room for occasional sharp exchanges and flaring of tempers. When conduct gets out of hand, someone should step in (see below), but an everyday dust up should not be punished. In fact, it may be the canary in the coal mine that signals a deeper problem worth addressing. Take, for example, a victim of sexual harassment who is written up for violating a civility code because she is angry about organizational indifference to her reports of mistreatment.

3. Prohibit abuse — When speech becomes abusive, intervention is necessary. Bullying, harassment, and intimidation should be prohibited. Some aggressors can be coached or counseled; others should be disciplined or terminated. Targets of their behavior should be safeguarded and protected from retaliation for reporting the mistreatment.

This is an ultimate test of organizational ethics, especially if an aggressor happens to be a senior person. Strewn around too many workplaces are a lot of lumpy rugs, with very ugly, destructive behaviors swept under them.

Does federal labor law allow you to criticize your boss on Facebook?

Let’s suppose you go to Facebook and start posting critical comments about your boss. If he finds out, does federal labor law protect you from being fired or disciplined?

Answer: Maybe.

Sorry folks, but the lawyer in me resists, with good reason, a yes or no answer. Here’s why:

National Labor Relations Act

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the main federal law governing labor unions, collective bargaining, and collective worker action, makes it an unfair labor practice to retaliate against employees who “engage in…concerted activities for the purpose of…mutual aid or protection.” Typically this provision of the law is invoked when, say, workers are attempting to form a union or banding together to address issues of pay and working conditions.

The emergence of social media sites such as Facebook has led the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency charged with enforcing and interpreting federal labor law, to address whether workers’ online communications about their bosses and working conditions are protected forms of concerted activity.

NLRB’s Facebook and other social media cases

Last year, the NLRB’s acting general counsel, Lafe Solomon, collected 14 relevant decisions issued by the agency’s Division of Advice and summarized them in a detailed memorandum. Here is the NLRB’s summary of that memo:

In four cases involving employees’ use of Facebook, the Division found that the employees were engaged in “protected concerted activity” because they were discussing terms and conditions of employment with fellow employees. In five other cases involving Facebook or Twitter posts, the Division found that the activity was not protected.

In one case, it was determined that a union engaged in unlawful coercive conduct when it videotaped interviews with employees at a nonunion jobsite about their immigration status and posted an edited version on YouTube and the Local Union’s Facebook page.

In five cases, some provisions of employers’ social media policies were found to be unlawfully overly-broad. A final case involved an employer’s lawful policy restricting its employees’ contact with the media.

You can access the full memorandum here.

Key questions

In essence, there are three important questions to ask in determining whether employee activities will be protected under this provision of the NLRA:

1. Was the activity truly concerted within the meaning of the NLRA? Activity not intended to enlist the support or participation of co-workers likely falls outside of the reach of the law.

2. Was the activity for mutual aid or benefit? Talk about wages and working conditions very likely meets this standard, while gossiping about a supervisor’s personal life probably does not.

3. Was the activity of a protected nature? Constructive criticism of wages and working conditions is probably protected, whereas filling up a website with vile epithets about a boss is not.

Many workers are not protected by the NLRA

In addition, it is vital to note that many workers are not covered by the NLRA.  Expressly excluded from coverage are supervisors, independent contractors, domestic and agricultural workers, and family member employees. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that managerial and confidential employees are excluded as well.

All told, some 40 percent or more of the American workforce is not protected by the NLRA, including the concerted activities provision cited above.

So, for example, if you’re a mid-level manager at a local retail store who reads this and thinks, “hey, I’ll go on Facebook and complain about the CEO,” there’s a good chance you’re not covered by the NLRA.

Possible protections for anti-bullying advocates, but ask a labor lawyer first

Based on this assessment, the NLRA may provide legal protections for workers who are raising concerns with co-workers about bullying behaviors, including exchanges on sites such as Facebook. However, this assumes the activities are truly “concerted” within the meaning of the law and that the workers are not exempt from the protections of the National Labor Relations Act.

In any event, I strongly urge workers considering federal labor law as a source of legal protection to seek the advice of a qualified labor lawyer, rather than blithely making the assumption that they are covered.

In summary

If you surf the Internet for articles about the NLRB’s social media decisions, you’ll read headlines suggesting that you now have a blanket right to criticize or complain about your boss on Facebook. I hope this article has alerted you to the hazards of making that assumption.

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Obligatory but important disclaimer: This post is not intended as legal advice, and it is provided for informational purposes only. There are serious potential pitfalls for employees and employers alike in dealing with this body of labor law, and a summary of a few hundred words cannot replace legal advice tailored to a specific situation.

If you are in a situation that raises issues under federal labor law, consult a labor law attorney for an assessment of your rights and responsibilities.

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Longer commentaries

The National Labor Relations Act and workplace bullying

I explored the potential application of the National Labor Relations Act to bullying situations in my first law review on workplace bullying and American employment law, David C. Yamada, “The Phenomenon of ‘Workplace Bullying’ and the Need for Status-Blind Hostile Work Environment Protection,” 88 Georgetown Law Journal 475 (2000), at pages 517-521. The entire article can be downloaded without charge, here.

Employee free speech rights

For those who want to learn more about employee free speech rights in the private sector, this slightly dated but still informative law review article may be of interest: David C. Yamada, “Voices from the Cubicle: Protecting and Encouraging Private Employee Speech in the Post-Industrial Workplace,” 19 Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law 1 (1998), which can be downloaded without charge, here.

3 Questions for Dan King, Founder, Career Planning and Management, Inc.

Dan King

Career counseling isn’t just for young folks attending colleges and universities. In fact, adults facing a job hunt or contemplating a career shift may be in even greater need of individualized coaching and advice.

Dan King, a Boston-based career consultant (and member of the New Workplace Institute advisory committee), provides such assistance. His firm, Career Planning and Management, Inc., has been serving individuals and organizations since 1987.

Dan kindly agreed to be interviewed for our “3 Questions” feature, and here’s what he had to share with us:

1.       Dan, how did you get into the field of career counseling?

David, I’d love to tell you that I was one of those people who always knew what he wanted to be when he grew up.  But I wasn’t.  I graduated college with a liberal arts degree and a few vague notions about career success.  Like most 21 year-old newly-minted grads, I was eager to earn some real money, acquire possessions, and of course, still have ample time for an active social life.

By age 32, after several unfulfilling jobs, I was disheartened and discouraged by the path my career had taken.  I had allowed my career to just “happen by accident” and knew I needed to be more strategic about my future.  I started reading everything I could about careers and vocation, which ultimately led to the decision to pursue a graduate degree in Counseling Psychology, concentrating in Career Development.  I wanted to help others avoid the same pitfalls of poor career planning that I had made – and that’s what I’ve been doing for over 25 years now.

2.       What are the backgrounds of your typical clients, and what services can you offer them?

My clients are primarily “mid-career professionals,” with some experience behind them and full careers ahead of them.  They range in age from mid-30’s to late-50’s and come from many backgrounds, including business, education, healthcare, law, non-profits and more.

Frequently they’re looking to improve their worklives, to pursue meaningful work that more closely aligns with their interests, skills and values.  Other times, they need help organizing an effective job search plan, including the more tactical details of resume development, interview coaching, networking skills and salary negotiation.  And sometimes they just need to speak with an objective outsider who can serve as a sounding board and trusted advisor.  Many of my client engagements have evolved into on-going relationships that have lasted throughout the development cycle of their careers.

3.       Many readers discover this blog because they’ve dealt with bullying and harassment on the job.  They may be unemployed, and their self-confidence has taken a hit.  What can an independent career counselor do for them?

I’m glad you asked this question.  A good career counselor will wear many hats – as coach, mentor, devil’s advocate, teacher, cheerleader, crying towel, therapist and sometimes drill sergeant.

When I’m seeing a client, I understand that they may not be at their full-functioning best.  They’re burdened by the stress of transition – and symptoms can show up as fear, anger, shame, or a sense of worthlessness.  It’s not uncommon for a client to exhibit behavior typical of an abusive relationship with an authority figure.  And anyone who has experienced unexpected job loss knows firsthand the rollercoaster of emotions that follow.

By providing a safe non-judgmental climate built on trust and understanding, an effective career counselor can help their clients give voice to their feelings, rebuild their self-esteem, and project the confidence necessary to achieve a meaningful and satisfying worklife.

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Starting in 2012, “3 Questions” is a regular feature presenting short interviews with notable individuals whose work and activities overlap with major themes of this blog. Go here to access all interviews in the series.

Notable books — February 2012

In the spirit of looking at things anew as the new year unfolds, some of you may be looking hard at your personal finances, investments, and retirement savings. If you’re like me and need to learn about this stuff from the ground up, here are some helpful sources:

Andrew Tobias, The ONLY Investment Guide You’ll EVER Need (rev. ed., 2010) — Several years ago, a dear cousin (now sadly passed) turned me on to this book, which proved to be a great starting place for understanding investing and financial planning.

Ilyce R. Glink, 50 Simple Steps You Can Take to Disaster-Proof Your Finances: How to Plan Ahead to Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones and Survive Any Crisis (2002) — Slightly dated, but still full of good advice. For me this book falls into the “do what I say and not what I haven’t done” category. Yikers, I have some work to do this year.

John C. Bogle, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns (2007) — The founder of the Vanguard Group is one of the most respected people in financial services.

Ben Stein & Phil DeMuth, The Little Book of Bulletproof Investing: Do’s and Don’ts to Protect Your Financial Life (2010) — Recommends a quirky approach to assembling a retirement investment portfolio; a bit too complicated for my tastes. But at least read it for the wise and sobering commentary about saving for retirement.

Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Scott Burns, The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America’s Economic Future (rev. ed. 2005) — A pre-meltdown warning shot about tomorrow’s economy, interweaving economic analysis with concrete advice on personal finances. This book, more than any other, taught me about projecting how “big picture” economic trends affect our personal finances.

Edwin M. Bridges with Brian D. Bridges, The Prudent Professor: Planning and Saving for a Worry-Free Retirement from Academe (2010) — Well, I probably found this book a little too late to put into practice all the advice that might provide me with that elusive “worry-free” (yeah, right) retirement, but it’s helpful for academicians of any age.

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A note to readers — I know that for some, “financial planning” and “retirement saving” are wholly unrealistic concepts right now. Many folks are barely making ends meet (if that), and if you are in this situation, I hope that your circumstances improve markedly and allow you to plan your finances with a longer-range perspective.

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Starting in February 2012, every month I’m sharing short mentions of books related to recurring topics on this blog that I have read, reviewed, or used, a mix of newer and older works. On occasion, like above, I will emphasize a specific theme.