PUTTIN' COLOGNE ON THE RICKSHAW

Chances are that the person to either your left or right hasn’t the intelligence, or common sense, of a bag of hammers. You’re going to run into idiots in the workforce, and you’re going to have to deal with them and many times that idiot is your boss. In your career you’ll come across naysayers, whiners, ego-maniacs, micromanagers, drama-queens, workaholics, rotten apples, do nothings, snitches, screw-ups, button-pushers, stubborn mules, cowboys, snipers, saboteurs, super-sensitive introverts, super annoying extroverts, narcissists, sycophants, sociopaths and (the worst) bullies. And that will be in your first year out of school. You’ll also find that these different personalities, unfortunately to the detriment of mankind, have cross-bred.

Most of us think that once we’re out of high school we don’t have to deal with these kinds of people any more, but remember the same idiots that you tolerated in high school have moved on to the business world with you. Your biggest frustration will be the realization that most all organizations tolerate these people. Recall my blog post “The Hedgehog’s Dilemma” of a couple weeks ago−you certainly don’t want to become friends with these people. Also, as we learned in the post “Industrial Strength Musical Chairs,” we stand a chance of becoming a poor Thomas being pummeled by all the Tony and Isobels of the world.

The conventional wisdom for dealing with idiots is to ignore them−take the high-road−don’t engage. I tend to agree, for as Mark twain once said, “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

Of course I use the term “stupid,” and “idiot” (and childish) interchangeable with all those personalities noted above. That’s because as Albrecht’s Law proves: “Intelligent people, when assembled into an organization, will tend toward collective stupidity.” This “law” was proposed by German entrepreneur Karl Albrecht to explain why all those people you know that seem normal outside of work become dysfunctional idiots at work.

The fact is that despite your best efforts you’ll find yourself sucked-in at some point and your workplace experience will turn into little better than a battlefield, i.e., little better than wrestling with pigs. I guess if most organizations didn’t have an over-abundance of idiots I would have had no reason (or material) to write my book Puttin’ Cologne on the Rickshaw.

That said I have to agree that it is rather foolish to attack the idiots head-on−especially if the idiot is your boss or manager. Your biggest challenge in your career will not be keeping up with the skills necessary to do your job or to move up the corporate ladder. It will be trying to get along for thirty or forty years without pointing out what a pack of idiots the people you work with are. It’s truly amazing how much “sliding by” and “not rocking the boat” you’ll have to engage in. You can live out on the street pushing a shopping cart, fishing for dinner from a dumpster, and it’d probably be more rewarding than most jobs, from the perspective of the nincompoops you’ll have to deal with.

The $64,000 question is why is the workplace like this−why do people act like idiotic children? In my book I partially explain this by taking a look at Transactional Analysis (TA) to reveal the mechanisms behind why people behave the way they do.

Transactional Analysis was first developed by Canadian-born US psychiatrist Dr. Eric Berne, in the late 1950s. In his book Games People Play, Dr. Berne dissects, in a simple easy to understand way, the whole process of interpersonal relationships and his book is one of the founding works in the field of Transactional Analysis (TA). Understanding the basics of TA is a great place to start if we want to explore the interaction of people in today’s workplace.

Briefly (if you want a more detailed presentation please refer to my book) to understand all human interaction we must first define what Dr. Berne calls the “ego state.” He tells us, “An ego state may be described phenomenologically as a coherent system of feelings, and operationally as a set of coherent behavior patterns.” An ego state is simply how you think affects how you act. Everyone has an ego state at all times. According to Berne people exhibit ego states that fall into three categories called Parent, Adult, and Child. They are described as:

• Parent: the same state of mind as one of your parents. You will thus respond as he or she would, with the same posture, gestures, vocabulary, and feeling. Authoritative and at time condescending.
• Adult: an autonomous, objective appraisal of the situation. When in this state, you’re using thought processes, the problems you perceive, or the conclusions you’ve come to, in a non-prejudicial manner. In other words you act impartially and professionally.
• Child: the intent of your reaction is the same as it would have been when you were a little boy or girl. You act moody, get angry, sulk and attack adversaries.

TA is a Neo-Freudian theory of personality and as such Berne’s ego states are heavily influenced by Freud’s id, ego and super-ego, although they do not precisely correspond with them. A primary difference between Berne and Freud is that Berne describes the actions of people as “games.” Thus the name of his book: Games People Play.

The key to understanding Berne’s ego states, and why they are important to our discussion here, is that everyone enters an interaction (Berne calls these “transactions”) with another person in one of the three ego states, i.e. we are a parent, adult or child. In the workplace, where everyone is a supposedly professional, we (hopefully) enter interactions, or transactions, with others as an adult. Berne claims that the “games” begin when interactions degrade such that a conversation between two people starts as adult-to-adult, and in response, one of the players reverts to a child. This forces the other to become the parent. This especially explains the path of many boss-to-subordinate conversations−certainly during the yearly performance review.

Hence the person who became the parent sees the person who became a child as an idiot. We all move through these three ego states many time each day, thus why we tend to see each other as idiots.

Berne asserted that these type changes in people’s ego states are totally independent of the nature and content of our daily interactions, i.e., any discussion between two individuals can degrade into a “game.” When interactions become a game, communication between the individuals breaks down. Thus Berne’s theories perfectly explain why good communication is often lacking in many organizations. It’s rough when your boss is an idiot, thus exacerbating the degradation in the interaction. Even worse is when the top guy in the organization is an idiot. When this happens the idiocy propagates throughout the entire management team like a contagious superbug.

In his May 5, 2010 article, “How to Deal with Stupid People in the Workplace,” Thom W. Conroy, gives us some advice. “Refrain from an aggressive action. The best way to deal with stupid people in the workplace is to simply smile, nod pleasantly and go about your business as though you have just had an amusing interaction with a small child. It needs to be understood that stupid people generally do not realize that they are stupid, so to point out the folly of their thought processes behooves no one.

“All of the guidance and corrective counseling in the world will not add a single IQ point to the intellect of a stupid person, so save your time and energy for battles at work that can actually make a positive difference. Allow the stupid people at work to ramble at their own discretion, as often the sound of their own voices is a wonderful vehicle to appease the intellectually challenged without getting personally caught up in the vortex of their ignorance.”

In other words, as George Bernard Shaw is credited with having quipped, “I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.”

Last week I talked about the chronic problem of over-commitment that plagues the business world today. I looked at the causes of this universal problem from the perspective of what organizations require of us on a daily basis−the cultural norms−plus our own personal bad behaviors and mindsets that get us into the mess of over-commitment.

There’s also another problem that’s both personal behavior related and many times an organizational problem. It’s what’s called the “Polish the Cannonball Syndrome.” This is a malady that affects organizations where design of new products is one of the mainstays of the business−this plague is especially prevalent in high-tech industry.

Since business today is all about “time to market,” the lower the time to get a new product to market can make all the difference in beating the competition. However, as we found out last week there’s the conspiracy of over-commitment that ham-strings many organizations into realizing the quickest time to market.

By the same token we have the “Polish the Cannonball Syndrome” that adds a new dimension to why projects take longer than planned. It revolves around the fact that engineering will continue to tweak a product design despite it already meeting the basic requirements for functionality. This tweaking includes adding features, with sometimes little value, or making irrelevant improvements that don’t affect product functionality. Thus extra time is spent on the product that delays its release.

It’s not quite organizational anal retention, it’s more that engineers like to engineer. Designing new products captures an engineer’s imagination and attention in such a way that they get distracted from the bigger picture (time to market and basic functionality) and go off in tangents instead of remaining focused on the goal.

Social technology analyst Jeremiah Owyang has also coined the phrase for this behavior/obsession as “Fondling the Hammer.” Hammer-fondling has to do with people that focus too intensely on the product hardware and not on the overall mission of the product. An example would be in building a house. The mission is building the house and the hammer is but one of many tools to accomplish that goal. Concentrating on the hammer doesn’t necessarily get the house built on schedule.

There’s also another problem within modern organizations that I’ve written about before in the post titled “The 80% Solution.” The crux of that post was that for many organizations there is no “notion of doneness.” Without it, projects just keep spinning on indefinitely, and thus never come to closure−80% being the goal or not.

Organizations need exit strategies and impending deadlines for every project they undertake, otherwise Polish the Cannonball Syndrome will set in. However, exit strategies and deadlines many times still don’t mean that a project comes to a timely end because every product design reaches that point where you think the product is releasable yet there will be a whole list of things that still need to be done to it.

The problem is that “doneness” is more a mindset than anything concrete, or subjective, in nature. In engineering-heavy projects you have the dogged determination to deliver the perfect design. So long as the engineer is active the project will continually evolve−keeping the design constantly in a state of change. To break that cycle you need strong leadership, for as the old saying goes, “sometimes it’s time to shoot the engineers and go into production.”

There comes a time when all projects/products should be taken out in the woods and shot. The only exception to this is a software project. These are, by definition, never done. The need for software changes will linger like a plague long after the product has shipped, e.g., MS Windows.

Alas, most projects are in a perpetual churn of change, without any way to escape. That’s because engineers want to know their product is perfect, better than the competition’s; that it’s bug-free and feature-rich. If their solution is elegant and clever, they are satisfied. However, they rarely consider whether their solution is to the correct problem. Engineers are perfectionists−they’re willing to put in extra hours to fix a bug, or add a capability, that only they know about and that will never affect a customer.

It’s this obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that is really at the heart of this problem and a basic characteristic of all engineers. For an engineer the most interesting phenomenon is the one that is out of place. It is the signal that there is more than meets the eye and thus more to be done. As science fiction author Isaac Asimov once said, “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ (I found it!), but ‘That’s funny…’”

So what’s the solution? It’s quite simple but none the less hard to implement. From my experience the solution comes down to leadership−doesn’t it always? My take: the difference between a perpetual project and a successful project−one that finishes on time with a high quality output−is the project manager. Organizations need anal retentive control freaks in these positions−better yet a benevolent dictator−who never loses sight of the project’s original set of goals and end date. With that focus, the project has a fixed notion of doneness, i.e., some delivery criteria or a point where the project manager can look at what’s been accomplished so far and say “there, it’s done.”

The thing to remember is that the Polishing the Cannonball Syndrome is completely natural. It’s even explained by the Second Law of Thermodynamics which states that the entropy (doneness) of an isolated system (design) never decreases, but evolves toward thermodynamic equilibrium which is the state of maximum entropy. The second law asserts that a natural process (engineering design) runs only in one direction, and is not reversible or stoppable. For those that may not know, entropy is define as a “gradual decline into disorder,” i.e., chaos. From my experience, this describes perfectly how many product design efforts end.

The bottom line is as Scott Adams tells us, “Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.”

In 333 B.C. in a kingless kingdom, located in an area that is now modern-day Turkey, there was a length of rope tied into an unbelievably complex knot. It was called the Gordian Knot−named after an ox-cart driving peasant farmer named Gordias. It was quite a complex knot and legend has it that the first person to untie the Gordian knot would be declared the king of the land. A guy named Alexander came along and developed a new set of knot-untying rules. Rather than sticking with traditional knot-untying techniques, Alex whipped out his sword and cut the knot in half, declared the problem solved, added the words “the Great” to his name and took over as king of the land. The story of the Gordian Knot is a perfect metaphor for how to quickly solve what may seem to be an insurmountable issue.

My post of a couple weeks ago, “Hatching a Catastrophe,” detailed why most projects fail. It identified that one of the biggest contributors to project failure was our delusional methods for under-committing (under-estimating) how long each element of a project will actually take. By doing this we delude ourselves into believing we can complete a project in much less time than even our past experience would dictate is possible and despite our past history we will fall for this same scheduling fallacy every time we start a project.

Despite the practice of “under-committing” being a big problem, there’s ironically a flip-side to this issue that we mustn’t forget. That is our tendency to subsequently “over-commit” ourselves to whatever tasks we have in front of us−we take on way more than we can effectively handle. In other words we get tied up in a knot–our own personal Gordian Knot. This is why the buzzword “multitasking” became so prominent in business–we all believe we can do and accomplish more than we really can and, by the way, do them all well to boot. This tendency to over-commit is like blight on many organizations. Breaking this habit is as tough as untying the Gordian Knot and being bound in a Gordian Knot is exactly what it feels like in an organization with chronic over-commitment. Unfortunately solving organizational over-commitment isn’t as easy as Alexander the Great’s solution.

There are many reasons we tend to over-commit. The first is that we erroneously believe that somehow the future will be different than the past, or the present for that matter. According to a study reported by the American Psychological Association, research reveals that people over-commit because they expect to have more time in the future than they have in the present. Thus, when tomorrow turns into today, we discover that we are too busy to do everything we promised. We make the commitments because we believe that something miraculous will change in the future that will free us of the yoke of crap that we tolerate today that keeps them from completing our tasks in the time planned. Of course we never really change anything about how we conduct business thus the “miraculous change” can never happen.

Even if we’re accurate in our estimate of how long a task will take we’ll procrastinate, or get distracted, until we’ve screwed away most of the scheduled time and then end up behind schedule. A two week task started a week late is really a three week task, even though it will only take two weeks to complete.

The main reason for our tendency to chronically over-commit is that we really don’t know our own personal capacity despite the fact it’s really not that hard to measure. We’ve all drank the multitasking Kool-Aid. This is why we all constantly keep accepting more and more work, or estimate a task as taking much less time than it really will, and thus we can’t get anything done on schedule. New projects are started and shoehorned into our already overloaded workload. Again we think the future will be different somehow.

We also do a bad job of prioritization. This is how your day starts: you already have 10 things to do and suddenly someone comes with a high priority project, or problem, that must be done and “only you” can do it. You don’t know how this task really compares in criticality against the 10 other projects you have going since most of them are high priority “hot” projects. In dysfunctional organizations everything eventually becomes “hot” sooner or later−they all become #1 priority. Then you delude yourself into thinking this new task will only take an hour or two and you blindly take it on not realizing that you’ve just fell through the over-commitment rabbit-hole. We all have a hard time saying “no” because we don’t want to be labeled as “not a team player.” Unfortunately that path can be more damaging to your career that saying no occasionally.

As Warren Buffet is credited with saying, “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say “no” to almost everything.” Great advice but hard to follow without getting fired.

The scenario above of not knowing the true priority of all the projects and tasks that are on-going exists because most organizations don’t have a master plan–a single point of tracking of all the projects in the organization. Projects are started on many different levels and places in the organization and there’s no coordination between them–many will need the same organizational resources at the same time−a recipe for disaster. Ask management which project takes priority and they’ll give you an idiotic response like; “all our projects are equally important.” Thus people in the organization have a hard time focusing on the right thing at the right time.

Focusing on the right thing at the right time can also be explained by what’s called “The Shiny Object Syndrome.” Shiny Object Syndrome is defined as the attraction to objects that exhibit a glassy, polished, gleaming or otherwise shiny appearance. The term Shiny Object Syndrome was first coined by Todd Defren in 2005, as an affliction that plagues organizations, companies and individuals alike. The problem is that it’s easy to get distracted from the goals and commitments you’ve already made. Rather than seeing things through to completion, you abandon the goals and projects you’ve already started to chase after whatever new thing has just caught your eye.

All of these causes/effects reinforce each other to create a vicious cycle from which most people and organizations can never recover. Task completions start to run late and the list keeps mounting−everything thus becomes “hot” because of its lateness. We then find ourselves having to work extra hours or taking short-cuts to temporarily alleviate the tension points−so we can move onto the next “hot” problem. In the process, we fail to do a thorough and quality job with any task, thus we continuously get caught in the trap of a never-ending cycle that makes it difficult to complete anything on time. With work quality down our personal performance goes down, the business starts to falter, tensions rise and the organization is well on the way to mediocrity. Sound familiar? It’s what the myth of multitasking is all about.

In today’s business environment we hear the buzz-phrase “think outside of the box” preached as the solution to all our problems. Thinking outside the box is really a dangerous practice for management to preach−it encourages people to believe that every problem/task requires a unique solution that hasn’t been discovered yet. The fact is that most problems are solved, and most tasks are competed, using the same old tried and true solutions of which we’re already familiar. And most projects are completed using tried and true solutions. The mantra of thinking outside the box leads us to believe that an upcoming project/task is different than all the rest making us believe that it won’t take as long this time around if we only find that unique, time saving, solution. Somehow the future will be different because we think that reinventing the wheel will free us of all the mundane, extraneous crap we face every day. We all know Einstein’s definition of insanity.

Over-commitment is probably the single malady that affects everyone in an organization−it’s both a personal and organizational Gordian Knot as it ties up so much time that nothing can be accomplished effectively. Remember there’s a fine line between overcommitted and overwhelmed.

The first thing to learn is that while others are trying to figure out exactly what “thinking-outside-of-the-box” really means, you can start by trying to find one little strand of the over-commitment Gordian Knot and unravel it, and then another, and then another−like untangling a string of tangled up Christmas tree lights. First learn to say NO more.

Take any task that you’re facing and think in terms of “is this really important to do right now?” Is there some little piece of this overall mess I can unravel just to get started? You too can pull out your sword and cut the knot, declare the problem solved, and add the words “the Great” to your name because you’ll no longer find yourself over-committed and overworked.

Unfortunately today’s business culture rewards those who are over-committed and overworked−it’s a perverted badge of courage. As Lisa Evans puts it in her Fast Company article “Why You Need to Stop Bragging About How Busy You Are,” “…a work environment where logging in long hours and complaining about not having any time in the day is considered a status symbol and a sign of success.” That’s all the wrong thinking for all the wrong reasons.

“If you’re not invited to the table then you’re probably on the menu.” – Hannibal Lector

I just read an article on LinkedIn that turned out to be quite controversial−it received over 1,400 comments−mostly negative toward the author. The article “Shoot the Dogs Early,” (April 07, 2014) was written by Barbara Corcoran, TV Personality on “Shark Tank.” Corcoran tells us about her philosophy for yearly weeding out of poor performers. As she said, “[I] established a firm policy at the Corcoran Group to clean out the bottom 25 percent of our commissioned sales force each year.” All of the comments that I read blasted the author for her callous “lay-off” technique. While I’m not necessarily a supporter of that lay-off style, what I found to be “harsh” about the article was her labeling anyone who’s been laid-off a “dog.” I bring this article to your attention because I saw a thread of reality in her description of how she executes the process−it reminded me of the game of Musical Chairs.

We’ve all probably played Musical Chairs in kindergarten. The game involves a group of children and a number of chairs one fewer than the number of children; the chairs are arranged in a circle with the kids standing in a circle around the chairs. The game starts when the music begins. While the music is playing, the players in the circle walk in unison around the chairs. When the music suddenly stops, the kids must scramble to sit down in one of the chairs. The child who is left without a chair is eliminated from the game. For the next round one chair is removed to ensure that there will always be one fewer chair than there are players. The music resumes and the cycle repeats until there is only one player left in the game−the winner.

Little did any of us know at the time but, through this innocuous game in kindergarten, we were being introduced to a process that will be repeated metaphorically later in life in the workplace. Just like those poor bottom 25% every year at the Corcoran Group, life in the modern workplace is like a game of Industrial Strength Musical Chairs.

In the workplace we’re exposed to the game of Musical Chairs in two different ways. The first revolves around the fact that the law of supply and demand is a daily reality. As one moves up the organizational pyramid structure the number of positions available (the demand) decrease in quantity, while the number of individuals (the supply), competing for these positions, exceeds the number of positions available. Our second exposure to the game of musical chairs is that we all live in quiet, chronic fear that we’ll be the target of a lay-off, i.e., we’ll be left standing when the lay-off music stops.

When we strive to move up the pyramid we’re in effect playing a game of musical chairs. While the music keeps playing, you may keep moving, but the music can stop for you at any moment and you’re left without a chair−or more appropriately you’re stuck in the same chair. Industrial strength musical chairs is one of the reasons organizations grow dysfunctional–everyone ends up back-stabbing each in the fight for a chair when the music stops.

We see this back-stabbing clearly in “Bull,” a current-running off-Broadway play by award-winning British playwright Mike Bartlett. While I haven’t seen the play personally, critics write that in watching the play you get a ringside view of three employees of an unnamed corporate entity who are at the endgame of vying over only two positions that will remain after a round of downsizing. The play graphically depicts both of the types of musical chairs−lay-offs and the narrowing pyramid−that we face in the battleground that is the modern workplace

Just like in the real workplace, what happens in the play is that two of the players join forces, like members of a wolf pack closing in on a wounded zebra−the third player. Anyone who has ever worked in a hostile work environment will recognize what’s happening in the play. The two sociopathic antagonists−Tony and Isobel−are determined to claw their way to the top regardless of collateral damage. They pummel poor Thomas, the third player who doesn’t stand a chance against these armed-to-the-teeth backstabbers.

The play takes place in a waiting area shortly before the three players meet with the boss. From the onset, Tony and Isobel hammer poor Thomas, denigrating him on everything from his dress, to work ethic and even resort to childish name-calling. They behave just like a pair of high school bullies. The play is billed as like watching the playground bullies beat up the wimpy kid but it gives us accurate insight into how people treat each other in the workplace−and how many are picked for lay-off.

The Free Dictionary defines a “layoff” as: “the act of suspending or dismissing an employee, as for lack of work or because of corporate reorganization, or; a period of temporary inactivity or rest.” The later definition implies that the lay-off is a temporary one—but we all know that 99.9% percent of the time layoffs are permanent. The first definition however, is what management will usually call a “downsizing” or some other in vogue corporate buzzword like “right-sizing,” “smart-sizing,” or “reduction in force (RIF).” All these are more politically correct labels that help make management feel less guilty after they do the dastardly deed. Call it what you want but they are all really just firings (a term you’ll never hear in the workplace any more) and all have the same finality for the poor sucker left without a chair.

Whether the bottom 25%, as in the Corcoran case, or the bottom 10%, as in the Jack Welsh model, all those buzz-phrases are just euphemisms for the game of Industrial Strength Musical Chairs that is played out every day in the workplace. What we all can empathize with in the play is that when we’re laid-off we become losers, or as Barbara Corcoran would call us, “dogs.”

Popular management delusion believes that layoffs are somehow rationally engineered−an organization’s opportunity to effectively “thin the herd” and let go of its weakest performers. There’s some of that now and then, but if anyone thinks that there’s some scientific process behind deciding who gets laid-off, you’re kidding yourself. As someone who’s many times been in the thick of having to lay people off, I can say, without a doubt, that the lay-off planning is never a rational, data-driven, process. Many times it’s simply management targeting all the Thomas’s in the organization.

To survive you need to be a Tony or an Isobel. The decision about who gets left without a chair when the music stops is many times personal−it’s about dog-eat-dog and as such, at the end of the day it’s every dog for himself.

Milestone: this blog post is my 100th

The Hedgehog’s Dilemma, or sometimes called the Porcupine’s Dilemma, is an analogy about the challenges of human intimacy. It describes a situation in which a group of hedgehogs all seek to become close to one another in order to share heat during cold weather. They must remain apart, however, as they cannot avoid hurting one another with their sharp spines.

The concept originates from a parable from the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer’s Parerga und Paralipomena (Greek for Appendices and Omissions), a collection of philosophical reflections published in 1851. Included in the work is a tale about the dilemma faced by hedgehogs during winter. In seems the animals tried to get close to one another when it grew cold, to share their body heat. However, once they did so, they hurt each other with their spines. So they moved away from each other to be more comfortable. The cold, however, drove them together again, and the same thing happened. At last, after a great deal of uncomfortable huddling and dispersing, the hedgehogs discovered they were best off remaining at a little distance from one another.

Sigmund Freud used this situation to describe the state of the individual in relation to others in society. The Hedgehog’s Dilemma provides a perfect metaphor for how workers interface with each other in the modern workplace−many times despite good intentions, our interaction with others results in mutual harm. As Freud said, “Our simultaneous need for closeness and distance is a fundamental reason why people often find it so difficult to work successfully in groups and teams.”

In the workplace, we all are faced with The Hedgehog’s Dilemma whether we consciously realize it or not. We all judge people (even if subconsciously) as being friend or foe worthy before we let ourselves “get too close.” Though we all may share the intention of close reciprocal relationships, many times it just can’t happen. Why is it that working relationships are so often difficult? All the answers lie in our own human nature: our inability to trust others and our inability to see past our own needs and wants.

Our inherent lack of trust is probably the foremost reason workplace friendships are tough to nurture. Each one of us could probably come up with specific examples of when someone threw us under the bus, or told lies about us to our colleagues or boss. But trust isn’t all there is to this equation−there are other reasons that friendships at work may not be in our best interest. Note that I’m not an advocate for a constant state of confrontation between employees−we still need to be respectful (even if the person doesn’t necessarily earn it) and act professionally in our dealings with others.

The first reason that striking up friendships is not a good idea is our innate feelings of vulnerability. Believe it or not, our fear of vulnerability is a driving force governing our everyday actions. Sharing who we are−our hopes, dream, fears, values, weaknesses−is inherently risky when you’re sharing with someone who might be vying for the same promotion. You can’t be friends with someone you see as competition or who sees you as competition. There’s only so much upward mobility to go around and if you and your colleagues all have your eyes on the same prize, things will eventually get ugly or at least awkward and passive aggressive.

Remember the workplace is not quid pro quo. If you scratch someone’s back you won’t necessarily have your back scratched−it will probably be stabbed.

Flat out, your subordinates and (especially) your superiors aren’t your pals. As much as we want to believe the human race is not evolved enough to disregard the unequal distribution of power that runs rampant in most organizations. And when it comes to your boss, you simply can’t be friends with the person who is responsible for deciding if you get a raise or not.

Lastly, remember there is on the order of 100,000 hours (more if you’re a workaholic or work for one) you’ll spend at work in your lifetime and sadly, there is little doubt that a good chunk of those hours will be spent working alongside people who drive you crazy. In fact given all the hours you’ll be trapped with your colleagues before all is said and done every last one of them will reach the level of annoying.

Also I don’t want you to confuse this whole subject of friendship with coworkers with what is, or isn’t, good behavior. An organization’s management team sets the right cultural behavioral norms and that has nothing to do with whether everyone is buddy-buddy. You can behave according to the organization’s norms (even when the norms include throwing people under the bus) and still not be friends with your co-workers. As a matter of fact the more dysfunctional the organization the less likely anyone should be or will be friends.

We see the effect of The Hedgehog’s Dilemma most within teams, so if we look closely at the organizational team context, we can see how The Hedgehog’s Dilemma plays out in daily interactions. Unfortunately teamwork is a crucial element of the effectiveness of organizations−we can’t always just be “individual contributors.” Teams are critical if you want goal oriented thinking and the ability to effectively deal with the inevitable (daily) crises that will occur. However, just like in the everyday whirlwind, that is our specific job, we don’t “have to be” friends with our teammates to act as a team. In fact I would make the case that teams work best when the members perform at arms-length. Remember that most often teamwork simply means completing your job so someone else can do theirs.

That said the ability to work in a team and thus accept some degree of closeness with others is undeniably essential in present-day organizations. Yet the reality for most teams is that the members find it very difficult to find the right balance between being close to teammates and keeping a healthy distance. That’s because for most of us, being on a team represents a hassle, a burden, or a necessary evil−thus making teamwork even more difficult. Although many teams do generate remarkable outcomes, most become mired in endlessly unproductive sessions, and are rife with conflict−the antithesis of friendship.

Last week’s post detailing “The Abilene Paradox” gave us insight into how groups or teams make decisions. Many times team members agree with the teams’ course of action despite not really agreeing. They then blindly follow whoever has the strongest opinion about what course of action to take−usually the boss’ opinion.

Because of The Hedgehog’s Dilemma, in many organizations the formation of teams and committees is a defensive act that only gives the illusion of real work all the while disguising unproductive attempts to preserve the status quo. At best, these teams do little harm because fundamentally they do nothing of real value however, at worst; these teams become a vehicle for blocking constructive change within the organization.

Unfortunately, dismantling a dysfunctional team is like untying the Gordian Knot. Unlike in the story where Alexander the Great simply “cut” through the knot we can’t always cut through the interpersonal issues and have everything miraculously solved.

This dilemma−our simultaneous need for closeness and distance−is a fundamental reason why we often find it so difficult to work successfully in groups and teams and why it’s difficult to really have people we can call a friend at work. Paradoxically, friendship in the workplace is both a response to complexity, and a creator of complexity. The bottom line is you can’t be buddies with someone who’s playing the same game of corporate musical chairs that you are.

Have you ever been in a meeting where everyone collectively decided on a course of action and after the action failed, weeks even months later, you find out that the decision was counter to the preferences of many of the individuals in the group? It’s a problem more common than you might think. This problem is due to a breakdown of communication in which each member mistakenly believes that their own preferences are counter to the group’s preferences and therefore, does not raise objections to the decision being made. I’m sure you’ve all thought this way at one time or the other−you tell yourself to “go with the flow” or “don’t rock the boat.”

This phenomenon is called “The Abilene Paradox.” The term was introduced by management expert Jerry Harvey in his 1974 article “The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement.” The name of the phenomenon comes from an anecdote in the article which Harvey uses to describe the paradox:

“On a hot afternoon in Coleman, Texas, a family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene (53 miles north) for dinner. The wife says, ‘Sounds like a great idea.’ The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, ‘Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go.’ The mother-in-law then says, ‘Of course I want to go. I haven’t been to Abilene in a long time.’

“The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the restaurant, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.

“One of them dishonestly says, ‘It was a great trip, wasn’t it?’ The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, ‘I wasn’t delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you.’ The wife says, ‘I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that.’ The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.

“The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.”

Harvey tells us the, “The inability to manage agreement, not the inability to manage conflict, is the essential symptom that defines organizations caught in the web of The Abilene Paradox.” In fact, Harvey believes that this inability to manage agreement, rather than conflict, is the single most pressing issue of modern organizations.

Harvey defines The Abilene Paradox as follows: “Organizations frequently take actions in contradiction to the data they have for dealing with problems and, as a result, compound their problems rather than solve them.” Recalling last week’s post, the Abilene Paradox brings new light as to why many projects fail–nobody really bought into the plan to begin with but didn’t say anything. The crux of the Abilene Paradox is that most of us would rather act in a manner congruent with the group than stand on our own beliefs. This is the result of our propensity for self-doubt and not wanting to speak up and possibly embarrass ourselves. This could also be called the; “It’s better to stay silent than to open your mouth and remove all doubt syndrome.”

There are two basic behavioral motivators for our becoming victims of the Abilene Paradox. The first is called “Negative Fantasies.” Here an individual supports the group only because he/she fears being made a scapegoat, branded as disloyal, or ostracized as a non-team player. In many of today’s organizations this is a real and distinct outcome of speaking your mind.

Second, is what’s called “Separation Anxiety?” Here an individual suffers from the fear of the unknown because we’re naturally afraid of things we do not know about. What we don’t know about frightens us into inexplicable organizational behavior, i.e., going along with the group when we don’t really agree with the decision. This fear of the unknown afflicts whole organizations not just individuals.

Harvey tells us there is a consequence for those who “fall” for The Abilene Paradox. It’s called “Action Anxiety.” Action Anxiety happens as a result of buying into an action that’s in contradiction to what you feel is right. The anxiety that sets in is prompted by the fear that you will have to endure the negative consequences of the group’s actions. This is also called “having an amazing grasp for the obvious,” because what always happens is that when the group action fails they will “search for the guilty and punish the innocent.” Despite the fact that “going along with the group” makes you as guilty as everyone else, the fact that deep down inside you disagreed with the group you feel you are innocent of any negative results.

The Abilene Paradox could also be called “Group Tyranny,” because the impact of conformity pressures on individual behavior results in the loss of the individual’s distinctiveness in the organization, or group.

We’ve all heard of the term “Groupthink.” The difference between The Abilene Paradox and Groupthink is that in groupthink individuals are not acting contrary to their conscious wishes and generally feel good about the decisions the group has reached. Whereas, in The Abilene Paradox, the individuals are acting contrary to their own deep-down better judgment and are thus more likely to have negative feelings about the outcome. Both illustrate that groups not only have problems managing conflict and disagreements, but even agreements may also be a problem in a poorly functioning or dysfunctional organization or group.

The bottom line is that when people are part of a group, they behave differently than as individuals, thus The Abilene Paradox and Groupthink impact the workplace differently. Both contribute to organizational dysfunction.

As Abraham Lincoln was credited as saying “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

Stated another way “you can get agreement from some of the people some of the time or disagreement by some of the people some of the time, but you can never get agreement by all the people all of the time for the right reasons.”

“The real sin of project management is not being over cost and behind schedule−it’s not knowing it ahead of time.” I don’t know who penned this saying but in my experience no truer words were ever spoken. I’ve worked on many (too numerous to even count) projects in my career and frankly I can’t remember one that completed on schedule, under budget and met the original expectations (specification). I’ve worked on projects at both ends of the spectrum−small and large, simple and complex yet all of them had the same odds of ending badly.

I recently read Frederick P. Brooks’ book called The Mythical Man Month ©1975, an exposé on why projects typically end badly. While the central theme of the book revolves around understanding why software projects typically end up badly, it reveals some fundamental reasons why any project can end in catastrophe. The book introduces Brooks’ Law which states: “adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.”

Brooks’ observations are based on his experiences at IBM while managing the development of OS/360. His premise is that more projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined. From my own experience I’d have to agree. Thus the question is why is this cause of project disaster so common?

Brooks details five areas he believes contribute to disastrous results:

• The typical techniques used for estimating are poorly developed
• Estimating techniques fallaciously confuse effort with progress
• We are uncertain of our estimates
• Schedule progress is poorly monitored
• When schedule slippage is recognized, the natural (and traditional) response is to add manpower

More to the point he claims the real problem is that no matter what has happened in past projects we don’t learn from the past. We start every new project with the unvoiced assumption that all will go well. Einstein once said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over somehow expecting a different result.

So the first false assumption that undermines a project right from the start is that we assume that “all will go well,” i.e., that each task will take only as long as it “ought” to take. The second contributor to disaster is the very unit of effort used in estimating and scheduling: the man-month.

Cost will vary as the product of the number of men and the number of months however, progress does not. Hence the man-month as a unit for measuring the size of a job is a dangerous and deceptive myth. It implies that men and months are interchangeable.

The man-month implies that people spend most of their work hours actually working the project. Studies have shown that most people waste more time at work then doing actual productive work. Between Internet surfing, excessive meetings, co-worker interactions, office politics, and fixing their own and others’ mistakes it’s a wonder anything productive is ever done. In other words you’re lucky to get much of a workers’ time actually spent on the task at hand.

In her 2013 Forbes article, “Who Wastes The Most Time at Work?” Cheryl Conner gives us some statistics on just one of those distractions. She tells us: “Sixty four percent of employees visit non-work related websites each day. In this category, the amount of time wasted per week on non-work related websites is as follows:

Time Wasted Percent of Employees
<1 hour 39% 1-2 hours 29% 2-5 hours 21% 6-10 hours 8% 10+ hours 3% As Conner tells us, “Imagine an employee who works 2,080 hours per year (260 days). If she is in top the bracket of time wasters, she wastes 520 hours per year. That’s 25% of her total hours at work spent on unproductive activities.” And that’s just wasted time on the internet. Add to that meaningless meetings and disruptions from peers that just want to BS and you see why progress is never made and schedules are never met. Brooks tells us that men and months are interchangeable commodities only when a task can be partitioned among many workers with no communication between them. This is true of reaping wheat or picking cotton; it is not even approximately true of complex engineering projects, or as Brooks would point out: software projects. In tasks that can be partitioned but which require communication among the subtasks, the effort of communication must be added to the amount of work to be done. Therefore the best that can be done is somewhat poorer than an even trade of men for months. Another area where we get wrapped around the axel is with scheduling the project. Schedules are basically just a list of tasks, or events, with anticipated end dates, called milestones, which when completed in the allotted time, and the correct order, lead to the project completion date. Some tasks are contingent on other task and many can be done independent of other tasks. Independent tasks can be performed in parallel, but contingent tasks must be performed in sequence. These then are what take up the most calendar time. The longest of these contingent paths being what’s called the critical path. The critical path is not necessarily the path that’s the most challenging and can change as a project progresses. As other sequences of event fall behind schedule they can overtake the original critical path and thus become the new one. The biggest threat to a project completing on time is when we’re developing something that’s never been done before−you can’t schedule “creativity.” In the feeble attempt to manage our projects, we create the all-consuming monstrous Microsoft Project files that approach megabytes in proportions with every task carefully documented and connected in Gantt chart glory. These behemoth schedules consume all in their sheer detail and length. These schedules go into ad nauseam detail scheduling minute tasks down to the hours of duration, all connected in a cause and effect relationship whereby if the first task overruns it’s time constraint the project is already behind schedule. Updating and managing the schedule is a daily, if not hourly, task and thus the schedule becomes more the project than the project itself. What is management’s typical response when an essential task is behind schedule? Brooks reminds us that they add manpower, naturally. However, this is exactly what they should not be doing. Recall Brooks' Law: “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.” Brooks Law applies to all projects and all disciplines of work. Adding more people to the effort is like dousing a fire with gasoline, making matters worse. More fire requires more gasoline, and thus begins a repetitive cycle which always ends in disaster. Of course another problem with project scheduling is that typically the need date of the customer often governs the wished-for completion of the project. However, it cannot govern the actual completion of the project. The length of time of a project depends upon its complexity and sequential constraints. The maximum number of people working the project depends upon the number of independent subtasks. From these two quantities one can derive schedules using the least number of people and months. One cannot, however, get workable schedules using more men and fewer months. Remember, you can’t put nine women together and expect them make a baby in one month. The critical path is nine months, no matter what you do. More projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined. Remember, project schedules are lagging indicators−by the time you discover you’re in trouble the damage has already been done. This is where project managers need to be proactive in “statusing” their projects more often than the typical once a month. Another critical problem is that we often confuse having a detailed schedule with having a plan–they are in fact different. Most projects are like jumping leaping off a cliff and then trying to knit a parachute on the way down. Another common problem that threatens most projects is “underestimating.” It’s human nature to underestimate the effort we’ll need to complete a task. To make matters worse we’ll typically stand by our estimates even when we know we’re not going to meet the deadline−we can’t admit we were wrong, or that we’ve been wasting time on other, non-project diversions. Also underestimates do not change significantly during the activity until just before the proverbial stuff hits the fan at which time it’s too late to make changes that will save the project from disaster. Our estimates of the length of an activity do not significantly change as the project proceeds no matter how wrong they ultimately turn out to be. We will never admit to being behind schedule until we actually are behind schedule−despite the fact we may have known it for weeks, or months. There are a few other problems that plague any project that have to do with how humans behave. The first is summed up in what’s called “Parkinson’s Law,” which states that “work will expand to fill the time allowed.” The second is what’s called the “Student Syndrome,” which revolves around our natural propensity to procrastinate. We all do this−we have estimated how long we think a task will take and then we procrastinate until the last minute to start the work. Some of this is not our fault, as I mentioned earlier, we allow ourselves to be “interrupted” and then we have to scramble to complete our tasks. In other words, we consume all the safety slack upfront. And when we scramble, we both make mistakes that further delay the project or we conclude that we underestimated the effort it will take to complete the task. Of course don’t forget our misguided belief that we can multitask. As I’ve shown in a previous post−multitasking is a myth. In the end what you hear is the project manager claiming the project is “off the rails” and it enters the annals of history along with every other failed project. The irony being that when the next project comes along we’ll make the same mistakes over again−somehow believing “this time will be different.”

The word “Omphaloskepsis” comes from the Greek omphalos (navel) and skepsis (act of looking, examination), in other words: “navel gazing.” Omphaloskepsis is a form of religious meditation practiced by Eastern mystics who stare fixedly at their own navels to induce a mystical trance. Merriam Webster defines “Omphaloskepsis” as, literally the contemplation of one’s navel as an aid to meditation. It’s the activity of thinking too much or too deeply about yourself, your experiences, your feelings, being self-absorbed or prone to concentration on a single issue at the expense of a wider view.

That said there’s a lot to be said about navel gazing. They say that the only person you can change is yourself thus knowing yourself as well as possible could be a valuable and productive use of your time−right? This focus on introspection also applies to whole organizations.

In a 2009 article on the Chartered Quality Institute website, professor of business administration at Portland State University, Tom Johnson talks about the problems Toyota faced after being hit hard by the recession in 2007. He tells us, “Shoichiro Toyoda, the 84-year-old family patriarch of Toyota Motors, responded to his company’s problems by announcing a stunning shake-up of top management. He chastised Toyota’s top managers for losing sight of the fundamentals that had made the company so outstanding and promised that the company would “return to basics.” The company’s financial downfall, he indicated, was not because of the recession’s severity, but because the company’s top executives made the mistake of pursuing finance-driven growth and pricing at the cost of sacrificing the basic principles that had made Toyota thrive.”

The take away here is that many leaders, finding themselves in a situation such as Toyoda did, would have looked outward to explain their organization’s situation. However, Toyoda looked inward. “Here’s what we’re doing wrong.” “Here’s what we can do better.” In other words he embraced a good dose of navel gazing.

That’s not to say that an organization’s situation isn’t to some extent the results of external factors−companies don’t operate in a vacuum. And it’s not to say that an organization should just ignore external factors. Effective management needs to be aware of the external factors that might impact their organization’s success and, to whatever extent possible, try to manage these factors. But realistically a company’s management can only have so much leverage over external factors. Internal factors, however, are completely controllable−you just need to understand what exactly those factors are.

Why this need to look inward? That’s because, most modern management teams are more concerned with “transformation” rather than “transactions.” By this I mean they are infatuated with somehow “transforming” their organizations by preaching “thinking outside the box,” and trying to find new and different ways to solve problems. This versus, as Shoichiro Toyoda did at Toyota, looking within the organization for the causes of the problems and thus the solutions. In other words he focused on the daily “transactions,” i.e., how Toyota was doing business, between every person/department/group in the full organization. In other words he preached thinking inside the box, or “organizational navel gazing.”

From my past posts you all know I’m an advocate of thinking inside the box, i.e., organizational navel gazing. While many would condemn navel gazing as a bad thing, I contend that it’s, many times, the best thing a management team can do. Navel gazing is not that much different from “mindfulness” which is all the rage these days in the business journals.

Today most companies are trying to “benchmark” themselves with other similar organizations in their industry. Or they’re running after the latest fad buzzword, or buzz-phrase, in the industry. However, the benefits are not always there and the answer is usually much closer to home. Practicing good industry standards is one thing, but many things that are good for a specific company are not necessarily good for another.

In reality most solutions end up being found inside the company itself. Every company, no matter how screwed up they are have top-performing individuals, top performing teams and successful projects, thus the focus should be to find a way to clone that efficient/effective behavior. The problem is that most organizations really don’t know who their top performers are−the antiquated performance review process doesn’t really accomplish that. The performance review process marginalizes everyone in the organization and actually stifles excellence.

What every company needs is a structured way to identify excellent behavior so that it can be easily understood, and reused. This is where navel gazing comes into play and I’ve talked about this before. Many organizations will have “lessons learned” reviews when a project fails so as to find out exactly what went wrong, but seldom do they have the same reviews to learn why a project was successful. This is where the real learning happens. This means an organization should focus more on its strengths than its weaknesses−a methodology preached by many (including myself) who are critical of the current performance review process.

That said, understanding what went wrong does have its value. Navel gazing allows identifying all the internal organizational problems so as to facilitate the finding of solutions. The process helps everyone in the organization understand how the organization can be fine-tuned and adjusted to meet the challenges the organization faces. Far more organizational resources should be focused on undertaking a spate of protracted navel-gazing.

Alas, navel gazing is usually a term that’s used derogatorily in most organizations to chastise individuals who are critical of how an organization is managed. Instead organizations make themselves feel good by looking to the outside for that next and great “secret” to organizational success, whether its leadership development, teamwork training, quality initiatives (like Lean and 6-Sigma), hiring the “best of the best,” etc. Much more organizational time needs to be spent trying to get an organization’s internal house in order instead of taking the risk of trying the latest buzzword fad.

Navel gazing is not just a matter of getting together and singing Kumbaya with employees. It’s a no-holds-barred, honest review of how business is done from the bottom up. Companies who discover their internal differentiator (what they do right) and then work to exploit that differentiator, not only find the holy grail of success, they find the holy grail of employee motivation.

There’s another faddish new management buzz-phrase floating around called “thought leadership” that appears to be the next hot skill, or talent (not sure if it’s either) that current, or would be, leaders are told they should concentrate on building. Everyone wants to be considered an expert in their line of work, be it factory worker, middle manager or CEO, but being a thought leader supposedly brings with it a whole new level of respect.

In their 2012 Forbes article, “What Is a Thought Leader?” Russ Alan Prince and Bruce Rogers tell us: “A thought leader can refer to an individual or an organization that is recognized as an authority in a specialized field and whose expertise is sought and often rewarded.” There’s a distinction here between being a leader in a field and just someone who knows a lot about a particular subject.

The term “thought leader” has a long history. It was first coined nearly 20 years ago, in the pages of business magazine Strategy and Business. The Editor-in-chief at the time, Joel Kurtzman, made the distinction that those worth talking to were called “thought leaders.” The term encompasses leaders and even whole businesses. For example, Google is the thought leader on internet search; Amazon on on-line retail; Toyota on efficient manufacturing and Peters, Drucker and Deming on leadership and Tony Robbins as a life coach.

Like most buzz-phrases, “thought leadership” is an often misused and misunderstood term. But what is it really and why do we need to consider developing and nurturing ourselves as thought leaders? That’s because a case can be made that to be a successful leader, at any level in an organization, a manager needs to be recognized as a thought leader in his/her own area of expertise.

Since true leadership is all about relationships Daniel Rasmus, a strategist and industry analyst, and the author of Listening to the Future, puts this into perspective when he noted: “Thought leadership should be an entry point to a relationship. It should help start a relationship where none exists, and it should enhance existing relationships.” What this means is that thought leadership is about how a person interacts with others−receptiveness to input and also initiative to seek out others for new information.

You can’t really be a thought leader unless you seek out and accept all different views on your particular subject of expertise. If your expertise only consists of the knowledge and opinions of your peers and close subordinates then you’re suffering the consequences of mindless mingling.

As I detailed in last week’s post, most senior management types−supposed leaders−talk out of both sides of their mouths when it comes to being receptive to the views and opinions of others. Most managers are not really very receptive because there’s a threat that the views and opinion they receive may end up being criticism. Thus most are completely oblivious to what subordinates, or even peers, have to say. Despite the leadership buzz about needing to be a good listener, a leader needs to actually comprehend, and act upon, what they’re listening to. This needs to happen before mutual, two-way, communication can be realized. Unfortunately most managers who view themselves as “thought leaders” really only “think they’re leaders.” There’s a big difference.

In her 2013 article, “How to Become a Thought Leader,” Lauren Hockenson gives us some practical advice on how to become a thought leader: “Do something everyone else in your field thinks is dumb, and be right about it.”

Scott Ginsberg, author of the 2010 article, “10 Strategies to Stop acting Like an Expert and Start Being a Thought Leader” puts being a “thought leader” versus just an “expert” into perspective: “Experts are experts because they say they are. It’s all about market share. And all you have to do is go to their website to see how much of an expert they claim to be. Thought leaders are thought leaders because the world says they are. It’s more about mindshare. And all you have to do is go to Google to see how much of an expert the marketplace claims they are. An expert is an island. He puts himself up on a pedestal above the audience. And he capitalizes on the power of his brain to put a stake in the ground. A thought leader is building a following. He builds a platform to cement an ongoing relationship with his audience and capitalizes on the power of his community to push the ideas forward. Experts persuade, pontificate and profit through doing, because they’re full of themselves. Narcissists, Machiavellians and sociopaths all do this. Thought leaders inspire, infect and influence because they’re sharing themselves.”

I first want to make sure everyone understands: having hundreds of “skills” listed on your LinkedIn profile, or having hundreds of endorsements from your connections, is “not” being a thought leader. You might think your subject matter expertise in any discipline is the source of your credibility and that this makes you a though leader however, the truth is until you’re able to take criticism (understand other’s thoughts and opinions), adjust your thinking and strive to understand all sides of a given subject you’re not a thought leader. You must, as Ginsberg would tell us: cement an ongoing relationship with [your] audience and capitalize on the power of [the] community.

That brings to mind the quote from the 1997 film G.I. Jane, which stars Demi Moore: “If I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.” What’s interesting about the quote is it speaks directly to how many management types feel about receiving input from those lower in the organizational hierarchy. The typical “predict-and-control” management paradigm, I talked about last week, where the “if I want your opinion I’ll give it to you” mentality rules, is mutually exclusive to thought leadership. People who run these type organizations are not thought leaders–they’re dictators. There is no better way to build trust, community, innovation, and all the things that make organizations successful, than to help people find their authentic voices and use them, i.e., become thought leaders in their own right. Being an expert at navel-gazing does not make you a thought leader.

Henry Ford, the pioneer of mass production, a true command and control type personality once said, “Why is it every time I ask for a pair of hands, they come with a brain attached?” What Ford’s really saying here is that he despises an employee that can think for him or herself or who would stand up for what they believe is right v. wrong. However, Ford is right that employees who can think for themselves and are not afraid to call out the boss then he’s wrong literally have no place in a strict hierarchy of the command and control management style. If you’re an employee in that type environment, challenging authority is hard, as ultimately the stakes are high.

I saw an article on LinkedIn by Harvard Business School Professor Michael Wheeler, titled “Sorry Captain, You’re Wrong” that got me thinking about this subject. Wheeler talks of the 2013 Asiana Airlines accident in San Francisco. The official investigation of the crash revealed that one of the co-pilots was afraid to warn his captain about the low-speed landing. As a result, the plane crashed short of the runway and three people were killed and 181 others were injured. What’s really interesting is the response to the crash by the CEO of the airline who blamed the crash on the fact that Koreans tend “toward a patriarchal culture and pilots work and fly within the strict military order.” In the military you do not second guess your commander and you certainly don’t point out his mistakes.

Actually, in the modern business environment, the receptivity of the boss to criticism is a universal problem. It’s not confined to Asia or airplane cockpits. And it isn’t simply whether workers should express their disagreement−it’s also whether the boss is even receptive to critical input. Therefore I’d never advise you to go tell the boss he/she is doing something wrong unless you know without a shadow of a doubt that he’she is receptive, i.e., what happens to people who do challenge authority? In many organizations the quickest way to move to the top of the lay-off list is by voicing any criticism of management or the status quo.

Wheeler also uses the 1982 Air Florida plane crash that killed both pilots, along with seventy-six others on board or on the ground, as an example. Air Florida Flight 90 was a domestic passenger flight from Washington National Airport to Fort Lauderdale. The plane managed to take off and stay airborne for 30 seconds before crashing and hitting six cars and a truck on a bridge and then plunging into the Potomac River. This sad tale is an example of the boss’s lack of receptivity to any simple questioning, let alone criticism, and utter calmness in ignoring the input from the copilot. The following is the flight-recorder exchange between the captain and his copilot as they waited for the control tower to clear them for takeoff. Their Boeing 737 had been de-iced earlier, but flights were backed up, and freezing rain was still falling.

Copilot: Anti-ice?
Captain: Real cold, real cold.
Copilot: Let’s check the ice on those tops [wings] again, since we’ve been sitting here awhile.
Captain: No. I think we get to go in a minute.
Copilot: [As they are rolling down the runway] God, look at that thing. That doesn’t seem right, does it? Uh, that’s not right.
Captain: Yes, there it is, eighty.
Copilot: Naw, I don’t think that’s right.
Captain: Hundred and twenty.
Copilot: I don’t know. [There is the sound of the plane straining unsuccessfully to gain altitude.]
Captain: Stalling. We’re falling.
Copilot: Larry, we’re going down!
Captain: I know it.

This transcript reveals a fatal discontinuity between the good intent on the part of the copilot and belligerent disregard on the part of the Captain. Despite the co-pilot’s concerns, the Captain nevertheless attempted to take off. This pilot and copilot certainly didn’t have a very trusting, respectful, relationship. The best guess is that the pilot simply didn’t want to wait any longer and going back for more de-icing would put him back to the beginning of the take-off queue. Intent on leaving, he shut out any input or information that would derail his original plan.

The captain shut out the copilot from any discussion and didn’t appear to even be listening to the copilot’s questioning of possible ice buildup. You’d swear the pilot must have been thinking: “this is so close to interesting-when’s he going to shut-up.”

The real problem lies in the fact that most modern leadership and management techniques are based on what’s called a “predict-and-control” paradigm. This management mindset revolves around the assumption that “management knows best.” They are responsible for planning the best path, anticipating the problems, and then controlling any deviations to the prescribed plan–they’re running the show. No one else in the organization is capable of that. This mindset is partially responsible for the “no surprises” mentality we see in many organizations. Since management can’t stand deviations to their plan they abhor being told when a problem exists. Learning of a problem usually progresses into the blamestorming mode that is another effect of predict and control.

This management style is a holdover from the 19th and early 20th century management mentality which gave rise to the hierarchal organizational structure still commonly in use today. In the typical top-down power hierarchy, work is organized, directed, and managed by those above and performed to process and procedure by those below. This worked well with the labor-intensive type work of the industrial revolution, but is doomed in the better educated, knowledge-based, information age we find today.

For true up-and-down communication to occur, what needs to happen is that business needs to shift from predict-and-control, to more of an “experiment-and-adapt” or “sense-and-respond” mentality. The key word here is “adapt.”

True “adaptive” behavior in an organization requires everyone have the freedom to question what’s happening, i.e., bring forward problems, and be respected and listened to. Being reactive is a hallmark of predict and control management methodology, but let’s face it, reactive is the way we’ll all spend most of our careers. Thus, adaptive behavior comes from being able to convert (react to) new information from an uncertain environment into action to either improve organizational performance or put a plan back on track.

The “steering wheel” type of control that is the hallmark of today’s command and control style explains why management doesn’t show much receptiveness to criticism. Just like the Captain of Flight 90. Why? Because they are afraid to take their hands off the steering wheel−they are gripping the controls of the organization tightly to keep it from hurtling into the abyss. The irony is that’s what usually happens anyway.

This is the mentality that has to be abandoned in favor of more receptive management that can receive not only constructive criticism, but accept surprises for what they are−that stuff happens. If management really wants to be successful, they should be encouraging challenges to the way the organization is being run, after all that’s what thinking inside the cockpit is all about.