Organic food on dirty plates

We went to a friend's house the other day for a pot luck. As I dug through the refrigerator looking for the salsa (we're close friends), I noticed all organic food: milk, fruit, cheeses all bought at a premium to help their children grow.  As I grabbed a plate from the communal stack for my (non-organic) tacos, I noticed that the plates were dirty.  They weren't that dirty, so a quick rinse and we were good to go.  

I was struck: organic food on dirty plates?  Would their kids be better off eating non-organic food on clean plates?  Did they notice the disconnect?  Clearly, Mom and Dad care enough about their children's health to be intentional about what they feed them, so why would they serve them on dirty plates? 

After I removed the plank from my own eye, I realized that they were, like me, doing the best they could.  Their intentions are to provide the best for their children and yet somewhere in the system of managing a house, the process broke down and the 'best' became challenged by reality.  They're not bad parents, just overwhelmed by the reality of parenting children. 

Then I sat with a client reviewing their talent strategy.  They sought to win the awards in the newspapers as a best place to work or cultural bastion or some such, yet their attrition levels were 20% higher than industry average, driven heavily by dated policies and years of bottom-line driven decisions.  They're not bad people, just overwhelmed by the reality of an environment changing faster than they can. 

So what do we do?  Clearly, we want organic food on clean plates or low attrition and awards, but what do we do first?

Face reality: we have dirty plates and bad attrition. 

Take action: Clean the plates. Stop the attrition. 

Dirty plates negate any beneficial (and expensive) benefit the organic food provides.  Great office parties make matters worse in environments where people are new every 9 months. 

Control the controllables built on a foundation of fundamentals, then add the extras.