This document uses the metaphor of squeezing juice from lemons to provide advice on how managers can increase productivity and output from their employees. It suggests that employees, like lemons, need the right environment and incentives to thrive. It provides several tips for managers, including cutting employees in half to apply pressure, heating them up with incentives, rotating them between roles, and pollinating them by encouraging interaction between departments. The overall message is that creative approaches can help unlock more potential and productivity from employees, just as squeezing and heating a lemon in various ways releases more of its juice.

1. The Half-lemon Creative Metaphor
Ali Anani, PhD
Know your employees

2. I dedicate this presentation to Luc Stenger
I made a comment on using the ½ lemon metaphor on LinkedIn Social
Capital Group and Luc Stenger responded by saying
“Luc STENGER consultant “situation analyst” - free lance
@ Ali : People need pressure to squeeze their juice as I said before:
• please define "pressure":
* freely accepted or self inflicted (motivation in this case) ?
* accepted by necessity?
* forced upon?
• every lemon kind is best for something
different (salad, cake, drink, ...)
• some lemon kind are corresponding to
expectations and others can be surprising
• asymmetric thinking can bring a very good lemon for
something to be far better for something totally unexpected

3. Employees are like lemon trees

4. A lemon tree needs good soil, environment
and fertilizers to grow healthily

5. These factors determine what type of
lemon the tree yields. Sour lemon, sweet
lemon, rough skinned lemon and
soft-skinned lemon are examples.

6. Now, you want to get the juice out of the
lemon or use its skin… how to do that?
Akin is :How to get the juice out of your
employees?

7. How to increase the juicy output
of your employees?
or, what a lemon may teach us?

8. You don’t get the juice out of a whole lemon
You need to cut it into two halves

9. If you squeeze a cold lemon you get
much less juice
So, are cold workers who have no
warmth for what they do
It is not only cold bodies;
it is more cold feelings

10. Apply some pressure on the lemon to
get the juice out
Sweet pressure is required to get the juice
out of your employees

11. Heat and pressure help in weakening the
membranes that trap the juice inside the
lemon’s flesh
Get the trapped juice of your employees
the same way

12. Keep the hearts warm
Heating lemon in a microwave for a short
time may increase the juice output by 40%
A great incentive is warming up the hearts
of your employees to lessen their resistance
to flow

13. The reverse thinking
Keep the lemon in salted ice--- this freezes
the water in the lemon.
Ice has bigger volume than water and so
the membrane loosens and the juice flows
out after warming

14. Similarly, if your employees go through a
“cold phase”, make them freeze more and
then warm them up.
Great improvements may result

15. A Butterfly Effect
Cut the lemon lengthwise instead
of crosswise
You shall be surprised to get three
times more juice.

16. So, change the direction of your employees
occasionally. Move them from engineering
to management or from sales to marketing.
Their juicy output may increase drastically

17. A Butterfly Effect
How then to make employees produce
much more using very simple and
creative ideas?
A challenge for leaders
and managers

18. You may use a fork to get the juice out of
lemon by rotating and squeezing it

19. You may use a fork to get the juice out of
employees by rotating and squeezing
them.
Rotate them so as not to get them bored
and to keep their productivity high

20. Some lemons are self-seeding
Look for employees who are self-motivated
to grow or grow others voluntarily

21. Some varieties of lemon trees have
branches have large thorns; yet their juice
is of very high quality

22. Even some workers may seem thorny; yet
their juicy output is of very high quality
Get the juice out instead of the employees
out. Sometimes, thorny employees are
great performers.

23. The peels of lemon have many uses.
Look for quality employees who are
multi-tasked.

24. Because lemon trees in containers are
sometimes used as indoor plants, they do
not have the benefit of bees or wind to
pollinate the flowers. Without pollination,
you will not get a fruit crop

25. So are employees who are kept indoors and
restricted from interacting with other
departments.
Encourage employee pollination

26. If a lemon tree is slightly stressed for water
bud induction, it will produce more flowers
Time the sweet stress of your employees
and their output shall increase

27. I end the presentation hopefully with little
sweet stress on the reader