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Reprinted from Keep the Joint Running.
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ManagementSpeak: I would like to set up a meeting with you to discuss this subject so we can put it into context.
Translation: I would like to set up a meeting with you to discuss
your disagreement in the context of your future position and salary.
Because H. S. Lahman put a piquant phrase into context, he gets to join the KJR Club.
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Ever since Samuel Johnson famously proposed that "Patriotism
is the last refuge of a scoundrel," last-refuge quotes, such as Isaac
Asimov's "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent," have been
popular.
I have to
follow Ambrose Bierce's lead on this subject, though: In both cases, far from
being the last refuges, they are the first.
Which leads
to this week's attempt at aphoristic immortality: "Coercion is the first
refuge of the lazy." (Yes, I do recognize that Freecell is the real first
refuge. Chalk it up to artistic license.)
Why is it
that, when faced with a choice between coercion and persuasion, threats and
promises, penalties and incentives, so many managers place their faith in
coercion, threats, and penalties?
I have three
hypotheses, and they aren't mutually exclusive.
Laziness is
the first, hence the aphorism. "Do it because I said so," takes less
time and effort than persuading someone it's a good idea. "Or else" --
using fear as the primary incentive -- takes less time and effort than figuring
out how to translate the desired action into employee benefit. And punishing an
employee for failure is much, much easier than the hard work of discovering
what went wrong and addressing the root causes of failure.
My second
hypothesis is that some managers are either unable or unwilling to hire well.
Maybe they're too cheap; maybe they're poor judges of talent, character and
drive; maybe they're too lazy. It's possible they don't want to hire anyone who
might show them up.
For whatever
reason, they hire second- and third-raters -- employees who, left to their own
devices, would while away their days ignoring the work to be done, showing
little interest in accomplishing anything of value and less initiative in
figuring out better ways of doing so.
Employees
whose bovine personalities are a perfect match to their manager's preference
for the cattle prod as a motivational tool.
That leaves
one more explanation -- a near-complete lack of self-confidence.
This might
seem counter-intuitive, because those who rely on coercion generally appear
crisp and self-assured.
And yet, the
no-self-confidence theory is consistent with leaders creating environments in
which ideas for improving their plans are unwelcome and expressions of concern
are forbidden. It accounts for the emphasis on threats and punishment: Leaders
who have no confidence in the direction they set and plans they've developed
won't want to explain why they're good ideas, probably worry their response to
challenges will sound bland and unconvincing, and certainly anticipate that
nobody in their right mind would do as they ask without threats of reprisals.
These, of
course, are just hypotheses. Even the most thesis-hungry MBA candidate is
unlikely to try to test any of them.
From your perspective, their importance is in how they might guide introspection: If you
see these tendencies in your own behavior, understanding why you have them will
help you overcome them.
And that is important, because coercion has no place in a healthy organization -- a
proposition that's more easily proven than, for example, the Pythagorean
Theorem:
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In
healthy organizations, excellent employees, individually and working in teams,
presented with a terrific idea and a well-thought-out plan for implementing it,
will want to make it real and will work hard to do so.
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Therefore,
in healthy organizations, coercion, threats, and punishments are, at best,
superfluous.
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Therefore,
if employees who are presented with an idea and a plan don't want to make it
real and/or aren't willing to work hard to do so ... if, in other words,
coercion, threats, and punishments are necessary ... then the organization is
unhealthy in one or more of these respects:
o The
employees are not individually excellent.
o Employees'
sense of teamwork is inadequate.
o The
idea is less than terrific.
o The
plan won't work.
One more conclusion
is entirely clear: Recruiting excellent employees, developing and maintaining
teams and a sense of teamwork, setting the right direction, and creating
realistic plans, all are part of the management job description.
Therefore, if coercion, threats and punishment are needed for an organization
to function, it's a symptom of bad management.
And it
highlights a distinction that seems vague and nuancy in theory but is clear and
distinct in practice:
In a healthy
organization, accountability is clear, but there's never a need to "hold
employees accountable."
In unhealthy organizations, the reverse is true.
Robert
Lewis is president of IT Catalysts, Inc., a consultancy focused on
improving IT organizational effectiveness and integration with the
enterprise. Contact him at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
.
Copyright 2009, IS Survivor Publishing, all rights reserved.
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