Don't be the Mole

 

This is a true story.

It will take place sometime in the next 12 months. Maybe at your company. Maybe in your department. Maybe... to you.

It's about two moles. Harry and Harriet. Both are good workers – the  kind who show up on time, hit their deadlines, and never cause drama in the tunnels. For years, that was enough. Dig your hole. Move the dirt. Collect your paycheck. Life was predictable underground.

But then a sinister force started spreading through the company culture. At first, it was just whispers in the break room. Rumors on Slack. Nervous jokes that nobody quite laughed at.

They called it A-Aye.

Over the past several months, this mysterious force had whacked moles in other units. Good moles. Experienced moles. Moles who had been digging for decades. One day they were there; the next, their desks were empty, their Zoom squares dark.

The media (some called it "Fake News") reported that companies across the country had reduced their mole force by 10-15%. Even the Federal Reserve cited A-Aye as a factor in workforce displacement as a reason for the recent 25 bps reduction.

So maybe it wasn't so fake after all.

But what exactly was A-Aye?

Harry and Harriet had managed to avoid the constant whacking by staying fast and looking busy on important projects. When the bosses walked by – or more accurately, when their activity metrics got reviewed – everything appeared fine. Green lights across the dashboard.

Then came last month.

A turbulent wind – hurricane-force – more whacking than ever before swept through their entire department. It wasn't announced. There was no memo. But the next morning, several of their favorite colleagues were simply... gone. They didn't even show up for the morning Zoom call, which never happened before. Their calendars went gray. Their emails bounced.

Harry and Harriet looked at each other through their screens. Something had to be done.

Part 2: :Minecraft for Work” and the WFW Metric That Changes Everything

Harry decided that being shifty was the answer. If A-Aye was coming for everyone, he'd outsmart it. He started using A-Aye to do his actual work while he appeared busy – attending meetings, sending emails, looking productive. Classic mole camouflage.

For a few weeks, it worked. Harry felt clever. He even had time to brush up on his pool game at the local hall, returning to his desk just in time for the afternoon standup.

But here's what Harry didn't understand: A-Aye wasn't just a tool. It was also watching.

The company had adopted something new – a metric called WFW, or "WAR for Work." If you follow baseball, you know WAR: Wins Above Replacement, a way to measure whether a player actually contributes to winning. A-Aye had brought this thinking to the workplace through something called "Moneyball!"

Harry's WFW score? Below average. Way below. His clever trick had backfired spectacularly. A-Aye could see the difference between motion and value creation.

Harry got whacked.

Harriet took a different path.

Instead of running from A-Aye, she decided to investigate. She started with her teenage son, who had been using A-Aye for deep analysis and creative projects for his classes. He showed her how it could think alongside you, not just for you.

Then her 9-year-old niece taught her something even more profound – about Minecraft. In that world, players aren't judged on credentials, years of experience, or what school they attended. They're judged on what they build.

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A lightbulb went off in Harriet's head. She went back to A-Aye with a new question: What if we combined these ideas?

Together, they created a new game: "Minecraft for Work." (Be sure to join the waitlist.)

In this version, every player – every mole – is measured on their performance outcomes, using the "Moneyball for HR!" framework. But here's the twist: A-Aye isn't used to eliminate jobs. It's used to redesign them completely – to build something better, more impactful, more valuable.

Harriet's WFW score? Through the roof. She wasn't just surviving the A-Aye revolution. She was leading it.

More important: less than 25% of her WFW score was based on being more efficient. The rest was for being different and far better.

The Choice Every Mole Must Make

Sadly, many moles decided they didn't want to play this new game. Change was uncomfortable. Learning was hard. The old tunnels felt safer – until they collapsed.

But here's the truth every worker needs to hear: Everyone now has a chance to redesign their job using A-Aye. The moles who thrive won't be the ones hiding from the technology or faking productivity. They'll be the ones who ask, "How can I use this to build something that matters?"

Don't be a Harry.

Be a Harriet.

Don't be the mole who gets whacked.

This is a true story. And you get to decide how it's written.