This entry is more along the lines of a “pet peeve” than some great management insight. But please bear with us because it’s important to get this off our chests.
Have you ever noticed that one of the quickest ways a manager (or anyone, for that matter) can end a dialogue, particularly one concerning a point of disagreement, is to pronounce your point of view “countrary to human nature”? This assertion is presented as being definitive, unarguable, sacrosanct, and therefore, finally determinative of any point under discussion. Once this decree has been uttered, any further disagreement or challenge may simply be viewed as argumentative and insubordinate. The issue has now been decided once and for all, by fiat and undeniable truth, hasn’t it?
Resorting to this argument, in our estimation, simply avoids having to confront or deal with any criticisms of the status quo, recommendations for change, or counterpoints to prior assertions. It is all that is left to be said when the manager runs out of valid and cogent counterarguments to your proposition. But its message is clear: leave it alone.
To what extent do you view your manager or supervisor as a great student of human nature? When he or she blurts out in the context of a debate something like “human beings are by nature competitive animals, and therefore trying to put together incentives for group cooperation is a waste of time,” how often do you actually find yourself in agreement with the manager’s pronouncement? Do you sit and question the degree to which you actually believe his or her statement and the conclusions implicit in it?
How many supervisors have actually been educated to any extent on the “nature” of human beings? Are they literate in the most recent scientific findings concerning human perception, human psychological development, human motivation, or attitude and belief formation. Or has most of their learning come through the “school of hard knocks,” whereby virtually all of their conclusions about human nature have been filtered through their old work environments’ cultures. Aren’t they simply bearing witness to the way things have always been in the worlds in which they’ve survived in the past and figured out ways to succeed? How much of their experience and personal evolution has been fueled by environments that encouraged individual learning and growth, risk-taking, experimentation, and continuous formal education. Is their pronouncement simply more along the lines of “we’ve always done it that way,” or “better not challenge the status quo if you know what’s good for you”?
We would argue that it’s not far-fetched to claim that it is human nature to defecate in the woods, if history is any guide of how humans behaved for thousands years before the advent of fixed communities and plumbing. Nevertheless, humans have evolved over the millennia with the advent of ideas such as civility, cleanliness, cooperation, and social responsibility. One of the great advantages of being human is that, unlike other creatures in the animal world, we are not saddled once and for all with our instinctual behaviors. Nor do we have to be slaves to prescriptions justified by pronouncements that they correspond with “human nature.” We can actually use our cerebral cortexes to develop new ideas and ways of thinking and acting that generate more positive and effective outcomes in the world.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
The “Openness” Myth
John was sitting on a weekly departmental “all hands” phone call when the question was asked by the general manager, “How valuable did you find the 2-hour web training session that was conducted yesterday by the IT department?” After some brief hesitation by all the participants, someone eventually pipes up to say that he thought the training was quite well done and very valuable for all of the participants. You smile to yourself because you know that the training was horrible: the trainer failed to present the material cogently and succinctly; the trainer offered no context for the material being presented; and, the material seemed to be presented disjointedly, in random order, without observations about the relative importance of different elements, and with little explanation as to its use cases. What do you do now? Should you say something?
Well, what you do depends largely on the culture of your organization. If it’s permissible to be honest and open about how you felt, diplomatically of course, you voice your concerns over what you think was missing from the training and make suggestions on how to improve it. You also acknowledge your appreciation for the effort made, but suggest concrete ways in which it could have provided greater benefit to you.
If it’s not permissible to be open and honestly critical of the effort made by another employee, then you simply parrot the same positive refrain issued by the first commenter and let it go at that. In fact, to do otherwise might be viewed as openly challenging or confrontational by the first commenter, who might therefore be offended by your “flagrant” contradiction. So, you refrain from saying what you think; you try to figure out what to say and how to say it so as not to offend the original speaker or the trainer. Or maybe you just waffle and slur some comments in ways that make them largely indecipherable.
Many companies take great pride in what they consider to be their open and honest work environments. But underneath management’s affirmations of these core values and beliefs--honesty and openness--often lies much withholding of sincere dialogue, innovative ideas, suggestions for process improvements, and valid criticisms of current process and policies. People ultimately disengage from the company meetings and supervisor dialogues for three primary reasons: (1) they know that their comments and suggestions will largely be ignored; (2) they realize that their ideas and contributions will be dismissed without explanation or exploration, because that’s what has always happened, or (3) they come to resent management’s “air” of indifference and condescension for anything that challenges the norm. Without the ability to make open and sincere contributions to the company’s body of knowledge and to influence how things are done, people will eventually withdraw from making such offerings. Once this happens, the company loses not only the immediate opportunities for individual and collective performance improvements, but it begins to stifle the development of its employees’ potential through their disengagement from improving the organization and any real long-term organizational learning.
In all honesty, ask yourself the following questions: How often does you manager solicit ideas and feedback from you and others about what's happening inside the organization? In what ways specifically do your supervisor and senior managers work to create a climate of openness, honesty, and trust with respect to the feedback they solicit? Do they then comment directly on the observations, criticisms and recommendations you make; give them due consideration and provide you with their perceptions and conclusions in return; or simply listen and then ignore everything you’ve said, with no explanation? What kinds of dialogues are held around your offerings? How are people rewarded and recognized for such contributions? How does your supervisor react when people’s recommendations or comments appear to contradict the mainstream thinking? Depending on your answer to these questions, your organization may be learning a lot or nothing at all.
Well, what you do depends largely on the culture of your organization. If it’s permissible to be honest and open about how you felt, diplomatically of course, you voice your concerns over what you think was missing from the training and make suggestions on how to improve it. You also acknowledge your appreciation for the effort made, but suggest concrete ways in which it could have provided greater benefit to you.
If it’s not permissible to be open and honestly critical of the effort made by another employee, then you simply parrot the same positive refrain issued by the first commenter and let it go at that. In fact, to do otherwise might be viewed as openly challenging or confrontational by the first commenter, who might therefore be offended by your “flagrant” contradiction. So, you refrain from saying what you think; you try to figure out what to say and how to say it so as not to offend the original speaker or the trainer. Or maybe you just waffle and slur some comments in ways that make them largely indecipherable.
Many companies take great pride in what they consider to be their open and honest work environments. But underneath management’s affirmations of these core values and beliefs--honesty and openness--often lies much withholding of sincere dialogue, innovative ideas, suggestions for process improvements, and valid criticisms of current process and policies. People ultimately disengage from the company meetings and supervisor dialogues for three primary reasons: (1) they know that their comments and suggestions will largely be ignored; (2) they realize that their ideas and contributions will be dismissed without explanation or exploration, because that’s what has always happened, or (3) they come to resent management’s “air” of indifference and condescension for anything that challenges the norm. Without the ability to make open and sincere contributions to the company’s body of knowledge and to influence how things are done, people will eventually withdraw from making such offerings. Once this happens, the company loses not only the immediate opportunities for individual and collective performance improvements, but it begins to stifle the development of its employees’ potential through their disengagement from improving the organization and any real long-term organizational learning.
In all honesty, ask yourself the following questions: How often does you manager solicit ideas and feedback from you and others about what's happening inside the organization? In what ways specifically do your supervisor and senior managers work to create a climate of openness, honesty, and trust with respect to the feedback they solicit? Do they then comment directly on the observations, criticisms and recommendations you make; give them due consideration and provide you with their perceptions and conclusions in return; or simply listen and then ignore everything you’ve said, with no explanation? What kinds of dialogues are held around your offerings? How are people rewarded and recognized for such contributions? How does your supervisor react when people’s recommendations or comments appear to contradict the mainstream thinking? Depending on your answer to these questions, your organization may be learning a lot or nothing at all.
Monday, January 29, 2007
The Myth of Home Grown Solutions
Obviously, each organization and person has to customize solutions for their situation and goals. But there are some general principles in regards to the importance of priorities, communication, system dynamics, variation, and processes that will be constant. Engineers, doctors, and architects are generally expected to be licensed and / or recipients of a formal education before they can practice their craft. They, too, must improvise and problem-solve in situations that weren't covered in class - but they have a body of knowledge upon which they can rely when doing so.
The field of management is perhaps not as mature a science as meteorology, physics, or engineering. But some fabulous minds have delved into the topic and come out with insights that could change how you do business.
It seems a crime that so few practitioners of management have heard of the leading thinkers like Peter Drucker, W. Edwards Deming, Russell Ackoff, Edgar Schein, and Peter Senge. Their writing is not always easy, but it generally seems easier to understand their insights than to manage without them.
Next time you are debating about whether to work overtime or do something personal, compromise: read a book by one of these great thinkers.
The field of management is perhaps not as mature a science as meteorology, physics, or engineering. But some fabulous minds have delved into the topic and come out with insights that could change how you do business.
It seems a crime that so few practitioners of management have heard of the leading thinkers like Peter Drucker, W. Edwards Deming, Russell Ackoff, Edgar Schein, and Peter Senge. Their writing is not always easy, but it generally seems easier to understand their insights than to manage without them.
Next time you are debating about whether to work overtime or do something personal, compromise: read a book by one of these great thinkers.
Friday, January 26, 2007
The Myths of Change
There are two myths of change. One is that change, if done right, should be easy. The other is that organizational change can occur when the individuals within it don't.
Change is hard. Anyone who has tried to change a bad habit can attest to this. If you are going to change anything significant you have to make it a priority and be prepared to struggle with it for some time.
Organizations emerge out of the interactions of individuals. Unless those individuals change their way of being, their relationships, their paradigms, their perspectives and their actions, the organization will not change. A change effort is always intensely personal. The change efforts doomed to fail are those that tell management that the change is directed towards the employee or tell the employee that the change is directed towards management.
Change is hard. Anyone who has tried to change a bad habit can attest to this. If you are going to change anything significant you have to make it a priority and be prepared to struggle with it for some time.
Organizations emerge out of the interactions of individuals. Unless those individuals change their way of being, their relationships, their paradigms, their perspectives and their actions, the organization will not change. A change effort is always intensely personal. The change efforts doomed to fail are those that tell management that the change is directed towards the employee or tell the employee that the change is directed towards management.
The Myth of Potential
One of the popular myths, embraced even more widely outside of management circles than within them, is the myth of potential. More precisely, the myth that anyone has the potential to succeed, or to do well, in any environment. It is a matter of will that makes the difference.
Yet one doesn't have to point to the extreme example of Wilt Chamberlin succeeding as an NBA center or Willie Shoemaker succeeding as a jockey to point out that potential is very personal and far from unlimited.
Two things may very well be true of most of us. One, we do not realize our own potential. Two, we have no idea how much work it will take to realize that potential.
People are not infinitely capable or malleable. The smart manager realizes how different are the potentials of his team members and adjusts strategy to accommodate that reality.
Yet one doesn't have to point to the extreme example of Wilt Chamberlin succeeding as an NBA center or Willie Shoemaker succeeding as a jockey to point out that potential is very personal and far from unlimited.
Two things may very well be true of most of us. One, we do not realize our own potential. Two, we have no idea how much work it will take to realize that potential.
People are not infinitely capable or malleable. The smart manager realizes how different are the potentials of his team members and adjusts strategy to accommodate that reality.
Friday, January 19, 2007
The Context for Providing These Myths
In rereading the postings so far, we can see that it might be easy for readers to simply think this is just another management bashing venue, painting a more serious and somewhat pedantic face over the types of vignettes and behaviors characterized in the very mocking “Dilbert” cartoons. But that is not our intention at all. We need to take a moment to set straight the context for our site’s entries.
Our intention is to expose some very deep-seated beliefs that appear to be both commonplace among senior managers and somehow so deeply ingrained into their subconscious that they remain invisible and, therefore, unchallengeable and unexamined. It’s almost a truism that the beliefs people hold very much define and fix their attitudes, decisions, and actions, and this is no different for managers. (Beliefs affect even people’s perceptions, i. e., their interpretation of direct inputs to their sensory devices: eyes and ears). Look behind what managers do and you can begin to discern what they actually believe, not necessarily what they say they believe. But, in what contexts are those beliefs ever actually examined or challenged in the workplace?
If people want to change how they perceive, speak and act, they have to change what they believe. Unfortunately, what senior managers actually believe is not always clearly discernible, and even when most employees correctly infer what their managers consciously or subconsciously believe, it is almost never discussable. Listen to Peter Senge discussing the idea of “mental models”:
“. . . new insights fail to get put into practice because they conflict with deeply held internal images of how the world works, images that limit us to familiar ways of thinking and acting. That is why the discipline of managing mental models—surfacing, testing, and improving our internal pictures of how the world works—promises to be a major breakthrough for building learning organizations.”
Our intention is to make visible the kinds of deep-seated beliefs that very often operate in the business world, particularly high in the executive councils, because those beliefs and the corresponding attitudes they engender tremendously affect people’s perception of the company, their attitudes about both the workplace and their bosses, and the degree to which they choose to participate in and work to improve organizational functioning. If managers want to begin to harness the tremendous intellectual and emotional energy that resides in their employees, they need to examine how their current beliefs or “mental models” de-power employees and limit the employees’ opportunities and desire to contribute. Conversely, seriously examining their uncovered beliefs in light of the myths we offer here may shed additional light on real opportunities to unleash the full potential of their employees and improve their workplaces.
Our intention is to expose some very deep-seated beliefs that appear to be both commonplace among senior managers and somehow so deeply ingrained into their subconscious that they remain invisible and, therefore, unchallengeable and unexamined. It’s almost a truism that the beliefs people hold very much define and fix their attitudes, decisions, and actions, and this is no different for managers. (Beliefs affect even people’s perceptions, i. e., their interpretation of direct inputs to their sensory devices: eyes and ears). Look behind what managers do and you can begin to discern what they actually believe, not necessarily what they say they believe. But, in what contexts are those beliefs ever actually examined or challenged in the workplace?
If people want to change how they perceive, speak and act, they have to change what they believe. Unfortunately, what senior managers actually believe is not always clearly discernible, and even when most employees correctly infer what their managers consciously or subconsciously believe, it is almost never discussable. Listen to Peter Senge discussing the idea of “mental models”:
“. . . new insights fail to get put into practice because they conflict with deeply held internal images of how the world works, images that limit us to familiar ways of thinking and acting. That is why the discipline of managing mental models—surfacing, testing, and improving our internal pictures of how the world works—promises to be a major breakthrough for building learning organizations.”
Our intention is to make visible the kinds of deep-seated beliefs that very often operate in the business world, particularly high in the executive councils, because those beliefs and the corresponding attitudes they engender tremendously affect people’s perception of the company, their attitudes about both the workplace and their bosses, and the degree to which they choose to participate in and work to improve organizational functioning. If managers want to begin to harness the tremendous intellectual and emotional energy that resides in their employees, they need to examine how their current beliefs or “mental models” de-power employees and limit the employees’ opportunities and desire to contribute. Conversely, seriously examining their uncovered beliefs in light of the myths we offer here may shed additional light on real opportunities to unleash the full potential of their employees and improve their workplaces.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
The Myth of Power
Russell Ackoff makes a distinction between power over and power to. If you have power over someone, you have power to limit their behavior. "You have to be home by midnight." "You are not authorized to make purchases of more than $500." By contrast, power to enables. If you give someone the power to, say, repair refrigerators or set broken bones, you have given them power to.
“Power to” is elusive and difficult. Also, it often doesn't even look like what is traditionally thought of as power, so reliant is it on the education and empowerment of the subject. By contrast, power over looks like the cliché that animates the actions of so many; it clearly has a powerful person and one subject to that power.
If you are in a leadership position, take a different kind of inventory. Assess to what extent your people have new capabilities, have new sets of "power to," in the last 12 months. It is this increase in power, this increase in ability to create value that ultimately defines progress. Don't succumb to the allure of the myth of power taken out of children's literature about kings and queens.
“Power to” is elusive and difficult. Also, it often doesn't even look like what is traditionally thought of as power, so reliant is it on the education and empowerment of the subject. By contrast, power over looks like the cliché that animates the actions of so many; it clearly has a powerful person and one subject to that power.
If you are in a leadership position, take a different kind of inventory. Assess to what extent your people have new capabilities, have new sets of "power to," in the last 12 months. It is this increase in power, this increase in ability to create value that ultimately defines progress. Don't succumb to the allure of the myth of power taken out of children's literature about kings and queens.
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