PUTTIN' COLOGNE ON THE RICKSHAW

On August 23rd, 1973 two machine-gun carrying criminals entered a bank in Stockholm, Sweden. The two robbers held four hostages for 131 hours. The hostages were strapped with dynamite and held in a bank vault until finally rescued on August 28th.

After their rescue, many of the hostages exhibited a shocking attitude toward their captors. Despite the fact they had been threatened, abused, and feared for their lives for over five days, when interviewed it became clear that they showed support for their captors. Some even expressed they felt fear of the law enforcement personnel who came to their rescue. Clearly, the hostages had “bonded” emotionally with their captors. This surprising behavior on the part of the victims has come to be known as “The Stockholm Syndrome.”

The Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages ultimately will develop feelings of empathy and sympathy toward their captors. Studies show that in hostage situations roughly 27% of victims will show evidence of the Stockholm Syndrome.

The Stockholm Syndrome has also been described as “traumatic bonding.” The key here is that this “bonding” does not necessarily require a hostage scenario. Traumatic bonding is the development of “strong emotional ties between people where one person intermittently harasses, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other.”

Along this same vein, another commonly used explanation for the Stockholm Syndrome phenomenon is based on Freudian theory. It suggests that the bonding between a victim and his/her captor is the individual’s response to the trauma of becoming a victim. They then begin to identify with the aggressor and believe the same values as the aggressor. According to Freud this is the way that the ego defends itself. In the mind of the victim the aggressor stops being a threat.

Of course this all sounds ridiculous when you think about it but the sad fact is that any of us who’ve been stuck in a dysfunctional job environment have probably experienced many of the feelings that victims of real hostage situations feel–we all exhibit some degree of the Stockholm Syndrome when we stay in a bad job environment.

Research has found that there are four situations or conditions present that serve as a foundation for the development of the Stockholm Syndrome. These four situations can be found in many abusive relationships and below I annotate them so as to show how they can relate to the workplace experience. They are:

• The presence of a perceived threat to your physical or psychological survival and the belief that the abuser would carry out the threat – does your workplace practice blamestorming? Do you dread going to meetings afraid that someone, including your boss, is going to throw you under the bus? Do you fear getting fired based on management’s constant hints to that effect? Do you and your colleagues feel like you’re walking on eggshells? Do you live in fear?
• The presence of occasional kindness from the abuser – even sociopaths are nice to their victims once in a while−it’s part of the game they play−they build you up before they hammer you so as to intensify their satisfaction
• Isolation from perspectives other than those of the abuser – are you brainwashed into thinking the organization is less dysfunctional than it really is−brainwashed into thinking that the “grass isn’t any greener on the other side of the fence”
• The perceived inability to escape the situation – you have been belittled and beaten down so long you begin to lose all self-respect and begin to question your own abilities

If you’ve ever been in a “bad job” you recognize the above feelings. They are exactly the conditions faced when in a dysfunctional command and control work environment. There’s a level of psychological abuse, intermittent kindness on the part of the oppressive management, isolation from the outside world and a perceived feeling of being “stuck” in your current situation.

When the Stockholm Syndrome sets in what ends up happening is that we start rationalizing our predicament by telling ourselves “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” or that the situation is “character building.” We feel trapped in our job, we don’t think that there is any way of escape and we wish that we were working somewhere else−yet we don’t do anything to change our situation. We resort to making excuses for our inability to move on in our career by telling ourselves “it pays the bills,” “I don’t have time to look for a job,” or worse yet, we start believing we’re not worthy of a good job and “no one will hire us anyway.” So we just stick it out and by doing so aid and abet our captors just as the Stockholm Syndrome would predict.

And yet when the chance comes to do something else with our careers, we will be incapacitated with hesitation and second thoughts. We’ve all experienced that sinking feeling of being unappreciated, underpaid, or used and we all have phantasies that things will magically get better despite any clear evidence of that happening. We rationalize this “hopeless” feeling by convincing ourselves that the job market is a scary place and that perhaps a dream job is just that, a dream. On top of that, and just as the Stockholm Syndrome would predict, we begin to defend our dysfunctional employer when anyone questions why we stick it out in a bad workplace environment.

If you find yourself agreeing with anything in this article it’s time to rethink your job situation and break free of your captors. After all that’s exactly what dysfunctional management is–your captor.

Of the top 25 industrial corporations in the United States in 1900, only two remained on that list at the start of the 1960s. And more profound is the fact that of the top 25 companies on the Fortune 500 in 1961, only six remain there today.

This proves the old adage that nothing lasts forever. It should give pause to all in management in today’s business world. It also sort of proves that the chaos theory, detailed a couple weeks ago in a blog post, is truly at work.

Some of those companies fell from existence because they miscalculated the competition or didn’t correctly forecast the future−a good example being any of the many companies in the typewriter business back when personal computers were making their debut. Still others disappeared because they were absorbed by other companies and still others ceased to exist undoubtedly because they were mismanaged into extinction.

Blockbuster is a perfect timely example. Blockbuster stuck to a business model that no longer offered benefit to the consumer because they discounted Netflix’s completely new business model and continued to believe they could compete and win. Undoubtedly Blockbuster’s management didn’t take Netflix serious because they felt they “knew better.” What else could explain their disregard? They were thoroughly convinced that their business model was the best one and would survive a rising upstart like Netflix. We all know how that turned out.

The sad irony is that after Blockbuster saw its lunch being eaten it woke up and tried to emulate the Netflix model, albeit too late. It’s sad because in many respects what Blockbuster countered with was in fact superior to what Netflix was doing. The problem is that once you’ve lost the customer base it’s tough to regain.

Companies like Blockbuster are an excellent example of what’s called a “self-licking ice cream cone.” A self-licking ice cream cone is anything that offers few benefits and exists primarily to justify or perpetuate its own existence. And just like an ice cream cone it eventually melts from existence.

The phrase “self-licking ice cream cone” was first used in 1992, in the paper “On Self-Licking Ice Cream Cones,” by Dr. Pete Worden, Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center. His article targeted NASA’s bureaucracy. It’s a perfect metaphor for why many companies are still in business despite their miserable performance or blindness to the future.

That said I’ll admit that in many ways all companies need to be self-perpetuating (self-licking) if they are to remain in business. However there are companies that are clinging to life when in fact they should be allowed to die an ignominious death if for no other reason than to put the employees out of their misery.

Having a viable business model aside and assuming that an organization’s management doesn’t make the same mistakes as Blockbuster, what I’m talking about are the organizations that self-perpetualize a dysfunctional culture and management style. An example would be obsession with process and procedure and the command and control management style that will make any organizational dysfunctional over time. What need to change are corporate cultures, which can become self-perpetuating models of power and authority, that support an unhealthy notion of what success is and how to obtain it. These attitudes spill over into how the management views the outside world and thus how they perceive the risks coming from the competition.

In an organization that isn’t a “self-licking ice cream cone” there is a mechanism (leadership) at play that transcends policies, procedures and practices and the need for command and control. It becomes more of how the organization’s management “leads” versus commands and controls, i.e., dictates.

Yes, procedures and policies are essential to a healthy organizational culture as they are the tools that “leaders” use to help align workers with the organization’s business model, and for the workers to effectively perform their day to day activities. However it is how these procedures and policies are implemented and the importance they are afforded that makes the difference in whether an organization’s culture will be functional or “self-licking.” Dysfunctional management creates a workplace culture that is blind to what’s going on around it, promotes stagnation and blindly sticks to process and procedure or a business model that has become antiquated.

The flip side is an organizational culture that helps the business model grow, i.e., promotes innovation (e.g., Netflix’s new approach to video rental).

Inertia is a powerful force in all organizations just as it is in nature−recall the chaos theory. Things at rest have a tendency to remain at rest–things in motion tend to stay in motion. There’s another way to look at this. We’ve all heard the cliché “rest on your laurels.” It means to rely on a past success instead of trying to improve oneself further or to stop trying because one is satisfied with one’s past achievements. Resting on your laurels is the same as remaining at rest. It suggests a decline into laziness and lack of application. Anyone who’s regularly read this blog knows that I love clichés. That’s because the fact is clichés become clichés because they best describe reality.

In business the expression “resting on one’s laurels” refers to an organization that is relying entirely on past successes for continued fame, recognition or its very existence. An organization resting on its laurels believes its past will ensure its future. Even the biggest, most successful companies eventually grow complacent and find themselves being beaten by some upstart with a new and novel business model or one that’s simply being “led” not “managed.” There are new business models, new ideas and new technologies being created every day that many management teams simply cannot see because their dysfunctional egos won’t let them. These are the companies that will snooze and lose.

So if you find yourself in one of these “self-licking ice cream cone” dysfunctional organizations that are “resting on their laurels” instead of trying to improve remember that’s because in business it’s easier to stop things from happening than it is to make them happen.

Ever been assigned to a team, or been part of any organization that’s supposed to act like a team, and there’s one, or a number of, individuals that just don’t seem to be pulling their weight? I don’t know about you but I’ve been on many teams that had numerous dysfunctional people that were there to play an important parts of the team’s success yet they proved to be duds. Actually I’m talking more about lazy people than dysfunctional. Lazy people just don’t contribute, however dysfunctional people most often over-contribute unfortunately most often in a negative way. Dysfunctional people are disruptive when present in a team while lazy people just attend the meetings. In my book Puttin’ Cologne on the Rickshaw I present in great detail how dysfunctional people upset both meeting and teamwork.

This post however is not about dysfunctional people–it’s about lazy people. Lazy people can be found everywhere you look in the typical workplace, but they’re usually not quite so exasperating until you find yourself relying of them to do their job. In any organization we’re all part of the overarching team that is the company as a whole; however lazy people usually don’t stick out like a sore thumb when looking from this vantage point. This is why every organization has them. Somehow they’ve managed to position themselves where they don’t need to contribute yet never get called on the carpet for it–they sort of hide in the wallpaper. They do however stick out when included in a small team atmosphere that’s entrusted with a crucial task to accomplish.

Laziness in the workplace is an interesting malady. The dictionary definition of lazy is: disinclination to activity or exertion, unwilling to work or use energy, idle, indolent, slothful, work-shy, shiftless, inactive, underactive, sluggish, or lethargic. That’s all fine when away from the workplace on your own time, but the problem is that many people act like that at work. When someone is lazy they are suffering what’s called “Cognitive Tempo Disorder.” Cognitive Tempo Disorder is scientifically defined as: passiveness, dreaminess and sluggishness–traits that could easily be confused with laziness.

Keep in mind laziness shouldn’t be confused with procrastination. Procrastination is defined as: delay or postpone action; put off doing something, defer action, be dilatory, use delaying tactics, stall, temporize, drag one’s feet/heels, take one’s time, play for time, play a waiting game. The key difference is that lazy people get little useful work done while procrastinators do eventually accomplish useful work, albeit late and not without much ridicule from management and co-workers.

Another key to remember is that medically speaking laziness is not an illness or a mental illness, but it can be a symptom of one, including: depression, chronic fatigue or schizophrenia. The causes of these maladies are obviously all medical in nature, however laziness can be caused by factors outside the individual–it can be also be caused by a dysfunctional workplace. A dysfunctional workplace can sap the strength of, or burn-out, people in a hurry. An example would be a person whose ideas are constantly ignored at work may decide there is no point in trying thus they’re seen as lazy. Another motivation for being lazy is a workplace in the grasp of blamestorming.

The good news is that a lazy co-worker does “stick out like a sore thumb” when you’re down in the trenches relying on them to do their job effectively. Remember the true meaning of teamwork is that “you get your job done so someone else can do theirs.”

Downright laziness is but one problem for the modern workplace that relies of teamwork to accomplish its goals. In the work environment there’s another phenomenon at work: “social loafing.” Social Loafing is a valid psychological term used when talking about the behavior of groups of people. It’s the phenomenon of people deliberately exerting less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when they work alone. This is one of the key reasons that groups (teams) are many times less productive than if you were to just combine the performance of the people as individual contributors. The difference between this and downright laziness is that even good workers get caught up in social loafing behaviors.

Social loafing is also associated with the concepts of the “sucker effect,” which is an individual’s purposeful reduction in effort in order to avoid having to pull the weight of fellow group members.  It’s also been called the “free-rider” theory for obvious reasons. Many of the causes of social loafing stem from an individual’s feeling that his or her effort will not matter to the group.

Clinical research on social loafing began with rope pulling experiments by French agricultural engineer, Maximilien Ringelmann, who found that members of a group tended to exert less effort pulling a rope than did individuals when pulling alone. Hence it’s called “The Ringelmann Effect” and it’s “the tendency for individual members of a group to become increasingly less productive as the size of their group increases.” Don’t confuse this with “groupthink” which is another frustrating fact of organizational life.

Ringelmann found there to be an inverse relationship between the size of a group and the magnitude of group members’ individual contribution to the completion of a task. As the number of people in the group increase, people tend to feel “de-individuation.” This term defines both the dissociation from individual achievement and the decrease of personal accountability. This then results in lower exerted effort for individuals in group environments.

Also, people could simply feel “lost in the crowd,” so they feel that their individual effort won’t be rewarded even if they put it forth. This idea can also cause people to feel as though they can simply “hide in the crowd” and avoid the adverse effects of not applying themselves. Again a blamestorming type work culture can exacerbate this behavior.

In the interest of fairness there’s also a flipside to social loafing. It’s called “The Collective Effort Model.” In social psychology this means that individuals who are more “personally motivated” are more likely to engage in group facilitation (that is, they increase their efforts when in a group setting) which is the opposite of those who are less motivated who are more likely to engage in social loafing.

It should come as no surprise that “motivation” would come into play when talking about social loafing, or plain laziness.

The researchers of the Collective Effort Model have determined that there are two factors that go hand-in-hand to determine an individual’s motivation, and subsequently whether or not they will resort to social loafing or collective effort. These are when an individual believes that 1) the chances of attaining the goal are high, and 2) the perceived value of the goal is positive. Thus, a person’s “attitude” toward the task at hand influences his or her motivation level and subsequent group behavior (and overall job performance.) Research found that job motivation was highest when the individual believed that their goals were easily attainable and very valuable. On the other hand, motivation was lowest when the goal seemed impossible and not at all valuable.

Unfortunately, the presence of a group can influence one’s perception of these two factors in a number of ways. For instance, working in a group may reduce a person’s expectancy of attaining a goal. That is, depending on the qualities of the other members of the group. For example an individual may find themselves in a group of high achievers who work hard and are guaranteed success whereas another person may find themselves in a group of lazy or distracted people, making success seem unattainable. Therefore, the link between one’s personal efforts and success is not direct. Unfortunately a person’s work success is heavily influenced by the work of others. This shines another light on the absurdity of the performance review process which is focused solely on the individual.

Similarly, the value of the goal may be contingent on the group members. For instance, if we must share the success with all other group members than the value of the goal is reduced. Hence, the dynamics of the group are an important key in determining a person’s motivation and the likelihood of social loafing or collective effort.

That said, I believe the biggest impediment to attaining true teamwork is what I mentioned earlier; “The Sucker” Effect.” This happens when people feel that others in the group will leave them to do all the work while they take the credit. Because people do not want to feel like the “sucker,” they wait to see how much effort others will put into a group before they put any in. If all the members try to avoid being the sucker then everyone’s effort will be significantly less than it would be if all of them were working as hard as they could. If you’ve ever worked with a sociopath you’ll understand perfectly the sad fact that there are people out there who will take credit for the work of others.

Of course maybe the lack of teamwork isn’t due to laziness, social loafing or the sucker effect after all. Maybe the effect is what is described as “Albrecht’s Law.” As billionaire German entrepreneur Karl Albrecht once said: “Intelligent people, when assembled into an organization, will tend toward collective stupidity.”

Maybe that’s why it’s called Cognitive Tempo Disorder.

Everyone knows how chaotic the modern workplace can be. That’s because chaos is usually the norm for most organizations. On any given day you probably don’t have to look too far to see some form of dysfunction, be it nasty office politics, people being blamed for things they didn’t do, people being thrown under the bus for any, and all, reasons, the resident pyromaniac lighting a fire that sends the student body left, us v. them attitudes, and the list goes on. Most people take the dysfunction in their workplace in stride (most often there’s nothing you can do about it anyway) and “play along.” By “playing along” I mean The Red Queen Effect is in place. Last week’s post taught us that we actually enjoy (experience Schadenfreude) a level of dysfunction especially if it results in a rival coworker ending up with the short straw in the Stump the Dummy lottery.

That said, did you ever think that the cards are stacked against a workplace actually being functional? We all dream of working in one but a perfectly functional workplace is just plain impossible to exist. As I explain in my book Puttin’ Cologne on the Rickshaw every workplace organization “has its own brand of dysfunction.” The fact is Mother Nature despises perfect function just as she despises a vacuum. In mathematics this is what’s called “The Chaos Theory.” But unlike it only being a theory in math, its reality when talking about organizational dynamics.

Chaos Theory studies the behavior of dynamic systems that are highly sensitive to their initial conditions, an effect which we’ve all heard of: The Butterfly Effect. You know if you kill a butterfly in the Amazon rain forest it causes global warming.

In technical terms Chaos Theory is defined as: “small differences in initial conditions (for instance in math a rounding error) yields widely diverging outcomes for dynamic systems. This in effect renders long-term prediction of what’s going to happen impossible. This divergence effect [slip into dysfunctionality] happens even though these systems are considered deterministic, meaning that their future behavior can be fully determined.” In other words, what we believe to be the deterministic (predictable) nature of a system (an organization) does not make it predictable at all. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos. American mathematician and meteorologist, and a pioneer of chaos theory Edward Lorenz (1917 – 2008) described Chaos Theory as follows: “When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.”

Chaos theory can be observed in many natural systems, weather being the best example, or for something more near and dear to our hearts: organizational behavior.

In common usage, “chaos” means “a state of disorder”. However, in chaos theory, the term is defined more precisely. The universally accepted mathematical definition of chaos says that for a dynamic system to be classified as chaotic, it must have the following properties

• It must be sensitive to initial conditions
• It must be topologically mixing (the way in which constituent parts are interrelated or arranged)
• Its periodic orbits (the direction or path) must be dense

To put that into terms that relate to a workplace organization we have:

• The organization is sensitive to its initial conditions: this relates to how the organization began–its initial condition. For instance was it a start-up organization? Was it a spin-off of another organization? Was it started by a narcissistic sociopath? Believe it or not this has quite a bearing on whether an organization becomes dysfunctional and how fast it happens
• Topologically mixing: this means that the organization’s inhabitants will have many different personalities, needs, wants, ambitions and, more importantly, how far they will go (evil behavior) to get what they want
• Its periodic orbits must be dense: this means that all the inhabitants are focused on a single path–supposedly the organization’s vision or mission

Chaos is the science of surprises, of the nonlinear and the unpredictable. This is exactly what workplace life is all about. In the workplace you must expect the unexpected. While most traditional science deals with predictable phenomena like gravity, electricity, or chemical reactions, Chaos Theory deals with nonlinear things that are effectively impossible to predict or control, like turbulence, weather, the stock market, our brain states, organizational behavior, and so on.

Chaos is not simply about disorder. Chaos theory explains the transition between order (functionality) and disorder (dysfunctionality). The key principles of Chaos are as follows:

The Butterfly Effect: the theory here is that one event causes something, even a world away, to happen. For instance a hurricane in Florida is caused by a butterfly flapping its wings in California. A more rigorous way to express this is that small changes in the initial conditions lead to drastic changes in the results. Organizational life is an ongoing demonstration of this principle. Hire one sociopath in the early stages of an organization’s existence and the organization will be changed forever–and not for the good.

Unpredictability: Because the initial organizational conditions, and how they will interact, cannot be predicted in any sufficient detail, we cannot hope to predict the ultimate fate of the organization. Well in a way we actually can–the organization will slip into dysfunctionality–Chaos Theory tells us that. Since it is impossible to measure the effects of all the butterflies in the organization, accurate long-range plans (predictions) will always remain virtually impossible to effect. Brings new meaning to the effectiveness of those five-year plans many organizations waste their time on creating. Most management can’t decide on what to do for lunch let alone what they’ll do in five years.

Topological Mixing: Organizational turbulence (a mathematical term that perfectly describes the flurry of human behavior in an organizational setting) ensures that two adjacent points (people) in a complex system (organization) will eventually end up in very different positions after some time has elapsed. Mixing is thorough because turbulence occurs at all levels of the organization. It is also nonlinear: most often the effects of organizational mixing cannot be “unmixed,” that is it’s tough to rid an organization of dysfunction that’s taken years to evolve.

Feedback: mathematically “systems” often become chaotic when there is feedback present. From an organizational perspective a good example of this would be the effect the performance review process really has on an organization. Since all performance review processes dwell on the negative it’s no wonder the organization will slip into chaos.

Fractals: In mathematics a fractal is a never-ending pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are similar across different systems–in our case organizations. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing way. Sounds like organizational dysfunction to me–i.e., organizational amnesia. In a mathematical sense fractals are driven by recurring events, or patterns–thus fractals are actually an image of a dynamic system like an organization. That is, a fractal is the picture of Chaos.

So when you go back to work and are wondering just how and why your workplace got so screwed up know that it was inevitable and predestined by mother nature–it’s just the Chaos Theory in action. Instead of getting depressed about it have some fun and try to identify the principles of The Chaos Theory at work.

My hope is that this post will give you an enlightening and entertaining look into why organizational dysfunction is written in the stars and inevitable in any organization no matter hard you might try to stop it. In fact the effort to try to stop it (feedback) actually contributes to the dysfunctionality (topological mixing).

The scary thing to remember is that organizational chaos is really preferred by most management teams. It provides both the necessary daily drama for their sociopathic thrill seeking all the while providing sufficient cover for their sociopathic manipulation and abusive behavior.

Do you experience a sadistic sort of pleasure at misfortunes that befall your colleagues at work? Come on tell the truth. I have to admit I sure did when someone I thought deserving fell from grace. Most of you will undoubtedly agree, and those that don’t are probably not being truthful. We all do it–relish a rival’s downfall. When we relish the misfortune of others it’s due to our thinking that the other person deserves the misfortune somehow (maybe they wronged us in the past) and thus we feel better about ourselves. Think about it. If you enjoy the misfortune of another, then there must be something about that misfortune that’s good for you, right? Otherwise why would it feel so good? There’s a name for that feeling of ecstasy we feel when one of our colleagues gets chewed out by the boss or the office jerk finally gets laid-off. That feeling of pleasure at the misfortune of others is called “Schadenfreude.”

Simply said, Schadenfreude is “the pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.” This word is borrowed from German, and the direct English translation is “damage-joy” or “fail-joy,” and it is the feeling of joy when one sees another fail or if you feel an evil sort of pleasure at the foul-ups of others. Merriam Webster’s defines Schadenfreude as “enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others.” I’ve also seen it described as “a bully’s satisfaction.” This would explain why most bullies walk around with smiles on their faces–they’re enjoying the havoc they create at the expense of others.

If we’re honest with ourselves we’ll all admit that we feel a twinge of pleasure when an obnoxious, or rival, co-worker gets in trouble–maybe even if they’re not obnoxious or a rival? The psychologist’s would have us believe it’s because we have low self-esteem issues. They claim those with low self-esteem experience Schadenfreude more often than most as they are more likely to feel threatened by others. However, other researchers have found that regardless of self-esteem, people tend to experience Schadenfreude when they see a co-worker suffer. That’s because in reality in the workplace “everyone” is threatened by “everyone” else.

While all of us get a kick out of the occasional blunders of a colleague, others, like sociopaths, are addicted to Schadenfreude. They thrive on other people’s misfortunes because of that feeling they get of having power over people as the instrument of their demise. They actually practice many of their sinister behaviors directly due to the feeling of Schadenfreude, hence why it’s also called; “a bullies satisfaction.”

In my book Puttin’ Cologne on the Rickshaw I talk about what’s called “The Red Queen Effect.” Schadenfreude is a derivative of The Red Queen Effect. The Red Queen Effect is at work in every workplace and the one reason we experience Schadenfreude. Unlike in the real world where we can feel sadness when something bad happens to someone (even someone we don’t know), in the workplace it’s totally different. That’s because in the workplace it comes down to the simple fact that we often gain from our coworker’s misfortunes.

There’s an old saying that gives a little more insight into Schadenfreude: It’s said that if you want the biggest house in the neighborhood there’s two ways to achieve it: you can roll up your sleeves and build it, or you can tear down everyone else’s house. The feeling of Schadenfreude is our motivation for tearing down other people’s houses–or rejoicing when the neighbor’s house is torn down by someone else–house being a perfect euphemism for other people’s careers.

The Red Queen Effect is about competition and most, if not all, of our work life involves competition whether we consciously admit it or not. Napoleon once said “Never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake.” Misfortunes happening to rivals level the competition and provide an opportunity to get ahead in the race to the top.

Schadenfreude explains why empathy is often so hard to find in the workplace, let along any sympathy we might feel for another poor soul. That’s because self-interest is a powerful motive, and it is only natural to feel good if we are gaining from an event, any event, even if it is from another person’s misfortune.

A team of University of Kentucky researchers recently proved that Schadenfreude makes politics the divisive sport that it is. The results of their studies were published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. They studied the reactions of Democrats and Republicans when the opposing party suffered some embarrassment. Needless to say each party was elated when the other party suffered a setback. We see evidence of Schadenfreude playing out every day on the news with the stories of Government dysfunction. They’re dysfunctional because of the divisiveness which finds its roots in Schadenfreude. Politics are the perfect example of The Red Queen Effect.

We see the same type behavior (albeit not quite as brutal) in everyday office politics. After all, the goals of the workplace are the same as that in politics–to either gain power or remain in power.

There is a natural Schadenfreude–friendly environment in every workplace culture. The more dysfunctional the workplace culture, the more intense the Schadenfreude feeling will be for the inhabitants when they see a colleague fall from grace. Schadenfreude is yet another reason that true teamwork is so hard to realize. It helps to understand why The Fiefdom Syndrome exists and why you’ll find the “us” vs. “them” mindset in many workplaces.

That all said, Schadenfreude is a natural human feeling, and we shouldn’t feel ashamed when we experience it. In many ways it’s just another example of our innate survival instincts. You may not even be able to consciously turn it off even if you try. So embrace it–it may be the only enjoyment you’ll experience if you’re stuck in a hopelessly dysfunctional workplace.

We are all swimming and kicking and struggling in a chaotic ocean called the workplace. When hell breaks loose, you must grab any life preserver that’s offered before it passes by. Some will throw you an anvil instead so if you can’t tell the difference between a life preserver and an anvil, you’re going to drown.

Have you ever had that feeling the world is out to get you? Is it especially true at work? Do you think all your so-called trusted colleagues, and your boss, are trying to torpedo your career? Sad fact is that that just may be the case. It’s one thing to get thrown under the bus by a colleague–hell you’d probably do the same given the chance–it’s dog eat dog out there. But it’s totally different if your boss is the one undermining your career.

In a 2010 Boss Day Survey, conducted by Monster.com, they found that more than one-third of workers (34 percent) say they are somewhat or very dissatisfied with their relationship with their boss. The study also found that 38 percent of workers indicated their boss is somewhat or very uncaring when it comes to their career development. More alarming is that, nearly half of workers (45 percent) say their boss has taken credit for their work, and another 37 percent say their boss has “thrown them under the bus” to save himself or herself. One out of four workers feels their boss is somewhat or very dishonest about their job security, and more than half (53 percent) feel their boss doesn’t respect them as a professional equal.

Given the above statistics it’s not hard to see that how you may feel is not unfounded.

The sad fact is that many bosses do, in fact, torpedo their own subordinates sometimes consciously and many times unconsciously. When malicious it’s called “The Master Suppression Technique,” a collective term for a range of practices that bosses/management use to “suppress” employees. In a nutshell there are techniques used to make an individual or group feel small or to keep that person or group “in their place.” They are techniques used to either silence, or otherwise marginalize, any person, or persons, that management sees as a threat. These techniques take many different forms, from fairly innocuous behaviors to outright oppression.

The Master Suppression Technique is a framework articulated in 1945 by the Norwegian psychologist and philosopher Ingjald Nissen. The techniques identified by Nissen are ways to indirectly suppress and humiliate opponents. In the late 1970s the framework was popularized by Norwegian social psychologist Berit Ås, who reduced Nissen’s original nine techniques to five. Master Suppression Techniques are defined as “strategies of social manipulation by which a dominant group maintains such a position in a hierarchy.” In other words techniques used to remain in power. Master Suppression Techniques are sometimes called Domination Techniques.

Berit Ås developed the theory of the Master Suppression Techniques to make a tool that can be used to identify what’s going on around you so that you can fight or flee. If you can identify the Master Suppression Techniques as they unfold you make them visible and thereby neutralize their effect. In today’s cut-throat workplace environment you need all the help you can get to survive which makes knowing them very essential and useful.

The five master suppression techniques that Berit Ås identified are:

• Making Invisible
• Ridiculing
• Withholding Information
• Damned If You Do and Damned If You Don’t
• Heaping Blame and Putting to Shame

Berit Ås believes that these techniques are used in specific combinations and situations due to the way modern workplace organizations treat employees as objects or property–.i.e., a means to an end or a tool that’s used by management to ensure their success and reign in power.

So how do the above five techniques manifest themselves in boss behavior? At a personal level, there are many ways that a supervisor or manager can blatantly, actively or inadvertently, practice the Master Suppression Techniques and sabotage an employee’s career. They are:

• Negligence: telling the employee that he/she will do something, yet having no intention of doing it
• Starvation: withholding information necessary for the employee to do his job; failing to provide the employee the necessary manpower, tools, equipment, or budget to accomplish his job
• Ostracizing: subtly, or overtly, excluding an individual from events in which he should be included if he is to be successful
• Discrediting: personal attacks or criticisms used to create doubt about the person’s competency or credibility
• Talking about an employee behind his or her back to the employee’s colleagues and peers.
• Badmouthing an employee’s colleagues and peers to an employee
• Marginalizing: excessive talking and no listening; monopolizing conversations, out-talking the employee either in a meeting or in private
• Obstacles: actively putting obstacles in the employee’s path to success
• Divide and Conquer: assigning two employees the same task without telling either one
• Diversion: creating a distraction, focusing on the inconsequential, sending someone off on a “fetch me another rock” safari
• Practicing “Pyromania” and starting fires around the organization for which employees must drop what they’re doing to “put out”
• Playing the “Stump the Dummy” game: e.g., finding out something the employee doesn’t know and then confronting the employee saying “gotcha”
• Workaholism: expecting all employees to be workaholics like the boss
• Micromanaging: picking apart everything the employee does

And if it isn’t bad enough that your boss may be out to get you but there are also a number of organizational issues and circumstances that can sabotage your performance and productivity (and moral) and thus your career. They are:

• Arrogance and ego on the part of management
• The Red Queen Effect
• Organizational and selective amnesia
• A fiefdom-rich environment
• Dysfunctional organizational communication
• Negative motivational climate or culture
• Performance appraisals and the focus on negative feedback
• Poorly lived organizational values
• An organization not in touch with reality
• An organization running the relentless race to the bottom

There are many reasons personal to the boss for why he/she may exercise the above techniques of suppression so before you can develop a counteracting strategy to address this behavior, consider why the boss is engaging in it. The most prevalent is that the manager has deep-seated insecurity about his ability to keep his position–he has recognized he’s reached his level of incompetence. It’s also an indictment of the whole organization’s management structure.

Allowing this behavior by middle-management bosses reflects high-level managerial ineptitude. The top guy in the organization was probably hired or promoted into that position because of his skill in generating business or his track record in his/her field. In today’s business world 9 times out of 10 managers are promoted not because he or she is a great leader but because they were good sycophants. It’s an even more caustic environment when upper management also practices these techniques on their middle management minions. This is further proof of the top management’s insecurity about their positions.

There’s one last thing to remember and it’s not on either list above. If you’re in an organization running that relentless race to the bottom and lay-offs are a common event then you need to realize that the boss is doing what he’s doing because management needs to keep an up-to-date ranking of all employees for the purpose of identifying who’s next for lay-off. As lay-offs happen and the “bad performers” are purged the ranking must be updated and a new list of bad performers must be identified. The Master Suppression Techniques are the means for the bosses to be able to feel good and sleep at night.

Make no mistake–whether they admit it or not, most organizations have these ranking lists. So for all of you out there who say you’ve never been a target of any of the Master Suppression Techniques–beware your day will come–sooner or later they’ll get to you.

Last week’s post tackled what I believe to be the most despised management practice in the workplace–micromanagement. I also noted that “workaholism” comes in a close second. Do you, or have your ever worked for, a “workaholic?” I know I’ve met many in my career–worked with them and for them. Have you ever given any thought as to what motivates these folks–why they’re the way they are? More importantly what are the effects these “dedicated” people have the rest of the organization. Do they provide motivation for all or do they really just contribute to why organizations tend toward dysfunctionality.

As a little background, the term “workaholic” is accredited to the American psychologist Wayne Oates who died in 1999. Oates coined the now-ubiquitous term in a 1971 essay, ”Confessions of a Workaholic: The Facts about Work Addiction,” in which he confessed that he was addicted to what he called “industriousness.” He admitted it was a disorder akin to substance abuse. And, as you probably would agree from your own observation, workaholism is much more socially acceptable than drinking or drugs (although some may argue this last point?). However, most workaholics I’ve known also have had drinking problems. The irony is that it’s the kind of affliction which in many organizations will actually aid your career–help you to rise to the top of the pyramid.

In Japan they have a name for workaholism: Karōshi. Karōshi can be translated literally from Japanese as “death from overwork,” and is the phenomenon of occupational sudden death. We’ve long heard of the infamous “work ethic” the Japanese are known for, but apparently despite that their economy hasn’t done very well for the last decade plus. That’s the basic crux of workaholism–it has virtually no effect on the bottom line of an organization. It’s like a cancer for those caught up in its slow killing of the host. This I call “The Karōshi Syndrome.”

Dictionary.com defines a “workaholic” as: a person who works compulsively at the expense of other pursuits, or; a person obsessively addicted to work. These are the people at work when you get there in the morning and still there when you leave at night.

We’ve all come across workaholics. I’ve had bosses and colleagues praise themselves as being “workaholics,” and by that they are implying that they “work hard.” Most of these people were actually boasting of this addiction with pride. And since most organizations actually encourage and reward workaholic behavior it’s hard for it to die the ignominious death it deserves. From my own experience one thing to keep in mind is that “workaholism” is not the same as “working hard.”

Psychologist Bryan Robinson has called workaholism “the best-dressed mental health problem” of them all.

How many people are true workaholics? One recent estimate suggests that about 10% of adults in the U.S. might qualify as workaholic and as high as 23% amongst certain “expected” professions, i.e., doctors, lawyers and engineers. Which begs the question: do these professions require a workaholic personality or does the profession create a workaholic? It’s highly unlikely that the checkout clerk at Target is a workaholic.

So what exactly makes someone a true workaholic?

In his August 2013 LinkedIn article, “Is There Really Such a Thing as a ‘Workaholic’?” Jordan Weissmann tells us: “What, precisely, qualifies someone as a workaholic? There’s still no single accepted medical definition. But psychologists have tried to distinguish people merely devoted to their careers from the true addicts. A seminal 1992 paper on how to measure the condition argued that sufferers work not only compulsively but also with little enjoyment. Newer diagnostic tests attempt to single out those who, among other behaviors, binge and then suffer from withdrawal—just as someone would with, say, a gambling or cocaine habit. Even as the precise outlines of workaholism remain a bit fuzzy, various studies have tried to identify its physical and emotional effects. At the risk of carrying on like a Pfizer ad: research has associated it with sleep problems, weight gain, high blood pressure, anxiety, and depression.”

Several factors, or symptoms, help us to distinguish between a normal hard worker and the workaholic:

• Workaholics believe that the long hours they endure and their “perceived” productivity is linear
• Workaholics have a short-term time horizon–perfect for today’s business culture of short-term financial focus
• Workaholics many times have limited success in leadership positions–servant leadership, empowerment and empathy are almost mutually exclusive to workaholism
• Workaholics tend toward micromanaging their subordinates–setting impossibly high standards and making their lives miserable
• Workaholics also tend to be highly critical of the work of their co-workers–will practice the gamesmanship of “throwing people under the bus”
• Workaholics believe they are “working hard” but seldom have monumental, game changing, accomplishments (yes we’ve all read about someone who’s done great things–Steve jobs for example–but workaholism does not imply “creativity”)
• Workaholics have a strong need to control other people and situations
• Workaholics find it difficult to delegate responsibilities
• Workaholics have difficulty working as part of a team
• Workaholics will often perform tasks that aren’t required–they create “busy work.” They focus on being “busy,” instead of focusing on being “effective”
• Workaholics tend to be pyromaniacs–setting organizational “fires” and creating the “student body left’ syndrome–they like the commotion it creates because it gives the appearance of “working hard”
• Workaholics in management positions tend to expect the same perverted “dedication” from all who work for them

It’s this last point that I want to focus on because it’s really the most despicable trait of these ‘bullies.” Yes they are bullies in a way–I make this case in my book Puttin’ Cologne on the Rickshaw. However, most workaholics never see the light and admit that they are bullies. And even when confronted with it they are unlikely to do anything about it–like change their behavior. Working long hours is the only way they know and expect everyone else to share that false dedication.

According to New York psychologist Dr. Marilyn Machlowitz, author of “Workaholics,” there are six basic characteristics that she found to apply to the workaholics she interviewed:

• They are intense, energetic, competitive and driven. They compete fiercely with others. They define themselves in terms of their work
• They have strong self-doubts and use hard work as a means of concealing or compensating for their perceived shortcomings. For some, their work is the only thing they are good at
• They prefer labor to leisure. They get depressed and anxious on weekends and holidays and look forward to Monday morning the way others look forward to Friday afternoon
• They can and do work anywhere and anytime–weekends, holidays, trips and time at home are no impediment to work. They often make their homes into extensions of their offices. Many are afraid to take a break lest they lose control
• They [believe] to make the most of their time. They operate from daily-activity lists and plan their lives weeks or months in advance

From the above it’s not hard to understand why the workaholism can be a subtle form of bullying. Sounds like a typical sociopath to me. The big problem that arises is when the Karōshi syndrome sets in and the above behaviors transcend the workaholic individual and are expected of all in the organization. That’s when it becomes more than a harmless trait and it becomes destructive to the organization.

As I said earlier, the fact that many organizations celebrate this behavior is a key component of many a workplace’s dysfunctionality–workaholism and bullying become institutionalized. A workaholic based workplace culture is cluttered with non-productive activities like meetings, internal memos, gamesmanship between employees and non-productive institutions like fiefdoms. Most employees in this type workplace believe they are made to feel inferior because they don’t work long hours. The whole organization then suffers from bad moral and organizational turnover is high.

In a workaholic workplace, employees see that the organizational priorities are misaligned and that the vision and values, so widely preached, are worthless. And the worse part of all: the efficient and effective employee–the ones that can get their routine job duties and tasks done in a timely manner become self-conscious and guilt ridden.

So think twice before relinquishing to a workaholic boss and thus accepting all his/her associated maladies by proxy–stuck being something without really actually being it.

The Puppet Masters is a 1994 movie based on Robert A. Heinlein’s 1951 novel in which American government agents attempt to thwart a covert invasion of Earth by mind-controlling alien parasites. It’s always been one of my favorite sci-fi/horror flicks. Maybe that’s because it reminds me so much of the typical workplace. In my mind The Puppet Master is the perfect description for one of the most despised practices in modern management–micromanagement.

From The Puppet Master perspective, micromanagement means that someone is “pulling the strings,” controlling what goes on beneath them. That’s exactly what a micromanager (a mind-controlling parasite) is doing when he/she tries to control everything that’s done, or produced, by his/her subordinates.

Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary defines micromanagement as “management with excessive control or attention on details.” Dictionary.com defines micromanagement as “management or control with excessive attention to minor details.” The online dictionary Encarta defines micromanagement as “attention to small details in management: control of a person, or a situation, by paying extreme attention to small details.”

In my mind these last two definitions prove more telling and accurate in describing micromanagement because they reveal that most micromanaging bosses will, in fact, focus their “extreme” attention on the “small, minor details.” It’s that focus on the minutia that really makes micromanaging cross the line between constructive criticism and move into the realm of bullying. In my book Puttin’ Cologne on the Rickshaw I make the case that micromanaging is, in fact, a form of bullying–more subtle maybe than some other more theatrical forms–but bullying none the less.

Of all the forms of bullying that exists I believe that micromanaging (workaholism is a close second) is the most sinister of ways for bosses to exert their command and control mentality on their subordinates. In some of its more intense forms it should be grounds for declaring a hostile workplace.

The real problem is that the command and control management system, that’s standard in the modern workplace, is built to reinforce micromanaging bosses. This explains why the sociopathic element typically rises to the top. They possess the natural tendencies to want to control all aspects of their subordinates’ work lives. Technology aids in this as Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations, generated by subordinates, beg to be scrutinized by the boss before put to use. Even when out of the office, micromanagers can satisfy their cravings with smart phones which ensure that harassment of the masses need never be far out of reach.

The negative consequences of micromanaging behavior run the gamut from being minor inconveniences to quite serious ones. What the micromanaging boss doesn’t understand is that they are displaying poor management skills when they are unwilling, or unable, to take the time to coach or mentor their staff v. pick apart everything they do or say.

Obviously this results in unproductive employees who become resentful or develop their own malfunctions and insecurities. A micromanaging boss is unable to lead by example because he feels powerless to let go of the reins and allow his employees to grow, take risks, and generally believe they are in control of their own destiny. Suffice to say micromanagers are not servant leaders.

Overall the organization as a whole will suffer as a result as most of the members will not be willing to make a decision without checking in with their micromanaging boss first.  Creativity, trust, and empowerment are all extinguished as a result of micromanaging. Authenticity is probably the only thing a micromanager can be praised for as the practice it brings out the true person in the management position–unfortunately it’s from a negative perspective.

Sadly, micromanaging also becomes another sinister tool (in concert with the performance review process) to terminate employees. In this scenario, a boss creates standards that an employee is not capable of ever meeting thus justifying the boss terminating the employee. And better yet for the micromanager, an employee may leave voluntarily because of his acknowledgement that he’s being set-up or belief that he’s in a no-win situation. Sociopaths don’t care if they’re tagged as being ruthless–they pride themselves on that accusation.

So what are the tell-tale behaviors of a micromanager? First, a micromanaging boss resists delegating tasks to his staff, preferring to completely control “all” activities in his, or her, fiefdom. Second, a micromanager will consistently focus on constantly correcting tiny (minor) details in their subordinates output rather than seeing the big picture. In most cases they will focus on “form” versus “content” or “quality” of the subordinate’s work. Lastly, micromanaging bosses must “approve” any action to be taken by a subordinate–most often including things that are in the subordinate’s job description to handle autonomously. Thus micromanagers become inordinately upset at others who attempt to make even minor decisions without first consulting them.

Remember, a micromanager is totally unaware of his/her behavior or its destructive effect on others because it is part of his/her genetic makeup. When sociopathic, bosses develop micromanaging behaviors that are the mirror of all their deranged concepts of management, i.e., what’s important and what’s not. Micromanagers have a hard time distinguishing between “efficiency” and “effectiveness.” It’s also a defense mechanism against the paranoid insecure notions they may have of how the world is “out to get them” and strip them of their power. Micromanaging is a manifestation of their need to be in control and is exacerbated by their narcissistic personality.

Micromanaging arises out of a sociopath’s general lack of trust in anyone other than themselves and because of that ever growing need for power. He, or she, may have learned how to be a manager by working for a micromanager that they were brainwashed into thinking was a great leader. Remember sociopaths who make it to the top rose through the ranks of the sycophants–they learned to idolize bad behavior.

In the end a micromanaging boss’s behaviors results in his/her workgroup acting like puppets all controlled through the strings being manipulated by the boss. I wish I had some words of wisdom that could rid the workplace of this ilk, but alas, there are no silver bullets. However, we could learn from one of the most famous puppet shows of all time: Punch and Judy. Despite Punch being a ruthless bully, Judy usually persevered in the end and Punch met his just demise.

Of all the traits that great leaders should have, the vaguest and hardest to understand, is probably “authenticity.” We’ve all heard it said that a great boss must be “authentic,” or “genuine.” But what exactly does this mean?

The World English Dictionary defines authentic as: “of undisputed origin or authorship; genuine: an authentic signature, or; accurate in representation of the facts; trustworthy; reliable.” That’s probably what most of us would think of if we had to define authenticity. But that doesn’t tell the whole story about authenticity.

In practice authenticity is a technical term used in psychology as well as existentialist philosophy. In philosophy, authenticity is “the degree to which one is true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character, despite external pressures.”

In psychology it’s defined as “the quality of being genuine and true to one’s own values.” The Psychology Dictionary provides a good example. “In psychotherapy and counseling, [authenticity is] a valued characteristic of the therapist, who must be considered to be genuine and caring. Authenticity is often demonstrated by a professional with down-to-earth attitude such that the client senses a true person and not simply the therapist acting in his or her professional role.” From a business leadership perspective it’s the psychological definition that’s most useful when we attempt to determine if a leader, or boss, is authentic.

The term authenticity is also described as; “owning one’s personal experiences, be they thoughts, emotions, needs, wants, preferences, or beliefs, and to know oneself and act in accord with the true self, expressing oneself in ways that are consistent with inner thoughts and feelings.”

If you look at the definition of authenticity it might be hard for someone to tell if the boss is: “owning his/her personal experiences, be they thoughts, emotions, needs, wants, preferences, or beliefs.” There probably aren’t any outward signs of these traits of authenticity.

So how can you tell if your boss suffers what I call the “Authenticity Deficit Disorder?”

Given how subjective authenticity really is, that maybe a tall order. So to help, I’ve tried to synthesize all those perspective definitions into what might be the “observable” basic personality traits of someone with true “authenticity.” Someone can be said to be authentic if;

• They speak with candor and honesty
• They have a willingness to share accountability
• They exhibit true empathy (recall my past blog posts of this subject)
• They say what they mean and mean what they say–they walk the walk not just talk the talk
• They are motivated by personal convictions–values
• They lead from their own personal point of view not necessarily from the “party line”
• They are true to themselves rather than conforming to the expectations of others, i.e. they aren’t yes-men or sycophants
• They aren’t faking leadership (believing they are leading but really having no followers)

This last one is important as there’s an old saying; “if you think you’re leading and you turn around and no one is following then all you’re doing is taking a walk.”

That all said rather than emphasizing what it takes to be authentic per say, maybe another way to look at this is to focus attention on “inauthenticity.” This has been described as; “an excessive plasticity (the capacity for being molded or altered and the ability to retain a shape attained by pressure deformation) on the part of a leader seeking to comply with perceived demands arising from his/her [management] role.” In other words, a manager is being “inauthentic” when he or she is overly compliant (i.e., process and procedure wise), or downright obsessed, with the demands related to his/her management role.  You could say they’re someone who is “thoroughly convinced of their own importance.”

Those who are authentic are deeply aware of how they think and behave and are perceived by others and of their own and others’ values/moral perspectives, knowledge, and strengths–in other words they exhibit empathy. They are also aware of the context in which they operate; and are confident, hopeful, optimistic, resilient, and of high moral character.

As an aside that above reference to “plasticity”–the ability to retain a shape attained by pressure deformation–is interesting. It explains why many leaders–I should say managers–are, for lack of better words, stuffed shirts. They have been “playing leader” for so long–being “molded” by the daily pressures of management–that they forget to be human. They forget that leadership is how you relate to the people you’re leading and not all about how the business is running.

In my book Puttin’ Cologne on the Rickshaw I talk about the most common malady in business today called “The Harpagon Syndrome.” The syndrome is suffered by nearly all people who have reached the top rung of management. The syndrome is derived from the main character, Harpagon in the play L’Avare (English; The Miser), a 1668 five-act satirical comedy by French playwright Molière. In the play, Harpagon is a wealthy, money-mad old widower. He loves money more than reputation, honor, or virtue, and spends his time watching and guarding over it. It’s what destroys his relationships with the world.

Leaders (or I should again say managers) in organizations suffering from Harpagon Syndrome do the same fretting about the financial condition of their business to the extent they can’t become authentic leaders.

This is an example of the many demands placed on top management that molds them to the daily pressures of management and running an organization. The higher you go on the corporate pyramid the more the pressure to be “inauthentic.” This explains why many “would be” leaders are so surprise averse and actually create confrontation and crisis in their organizations. They become obsessed with guarding against any and all things that could upset the proverbial applecart. It also explains how they become micromanagers and workaholics.

Of course in the end another simple way to look at authenticity is for you to “just bring more of who you are to the table more often.” Authenticity doesn’t need to be mutually exclusive with leadership; in fact, I don’t know how someone could be called a “leader” without exhibiting authenticity. Suffering the Authenticity Deficit Disorder should not be a given as you rise to the top.

If you are of true leadership material being authentic should prove to be no problem. Of course if you’re a sociopath trying to “act” authentic it will be counterproductive–people will see through your act in a heartbeat. That’s why you just may be out for a walk after all.

The expression “rode hard and put away wet” has been a favorite of mine for a long time. It refers to a person who looks worn out. The expression originates from the southern and western United States and its first use is uncertain. The phrase itself is derived from horseback riding. When a horse is exercised it works up a sweat and before being put back into the stable, it should be allowed to cool down by walking–just as joggers will walk after a good run. Thus a horse not afforded this cool-down period is literally “put away wet.”

Apparently horses not afforded this treatment can suffer from a number of problems: chills and muscle stiffness for example and, apparently it can also cause some mental distress for the horse. They become bad-tempered and resentful.

How many of you have ever felt that way work–metaphorically speaking of course–after an especially grueling day at work? Unfortunately this can be how you feel every day if you work in a dysfunctional organization. Just like a horse that’s been rode hard and put away wet you, too, become bad tempered and resentful of your situation.

This phrase reminds me of one of my favorite Dilbert comics. In the comic Dilbert is out on a walk with his mother when she asks an innocuous question: “How was work Dilbert?” Dilbert’s response is classic:

“I’m like a fly stuck in the thick tar of despair

Incompetence hangs in the air like the cold stench of death

I’m drowning and monkeys dressed as lifeguards are throwing me anvils

My job has convinced me that life is a stale joke with no punch line

I long for the comfort of the grave.”

His Mom responds with “Next time just say it’s fine.”

You’ll find a reprint of this comic in my book Puttin’ Cologne on the Rickshaw because it provided a perfect segue into the subject of abusive dysfunctional workplaces–places where every day you’re left feeling “rode hard and put away wet.”

There are many reasons why you start to feel this way even if you work in a supposedly well run organization. Why? Because it’s a rat race out there and this rat-race is called “The Red Queen Effect.” The Red Queen Effect is based on a comment the Red Queen made to Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. The comment: “In this place it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place” explains why as employees try to better themselves (raise, promotion, boss’s favor, etc.) their colleagues must in turn attempt to “better” themselves or they’ll be left at the bottom of the performance review ranking. And we all know what happens when you’re at the bottom of the performance review ranking–ultimate extinction.

Since its human nature that we all want better our own situation (in relation to our colleagues) it explains why The Red Queen Effect becomes a better motivator for individual change than all the performance review regimes in the world could ever hope to accomplish.

So if you work in a dysfunctional organization, that leaves you daily feeling rode hard and put away wet, what’s to do? That’s the question I wrestle with in my book; how do people adapt to abusive, dysfunctional workplaces?

Most workers remain in abusive work settings because the abuse has left them feeling inferior and afraid to go find another job. To cope, people will actually change their own behavior to align with the standard accepted behavior prevalent in the organization. That’s because an organization’s culture, even if dysfunctional, is infectious. The culture then enforces the bad behaviors–i.e., enforcing the norms–on other employees.

People stay in abusive, dysfunctional organizations by adapting to the organizational norms–no matter how absurd they are when viewed with an objective mind. When you feel inferior and afraid you lose all objectivity about your situation. In fact in dysfunctional organizations all objectivity has been destroyed. The dysfunctional behaviors, which are all negative by definition, become the norm–it’s hard to be positive in an organization such as this. As Marv Albert once said “It’s impossible to work under conditions where they confused negativity with objectivity.”

To cope, you find yourself muttering that now famous Friedrich Nietzsche quote: “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” In other words you resign yourself to your miserable fate. However cleverly you’ve talked yourself into sticking it out in a dysfunctional workplace it has negative effects on your well-being. People who work in abusive, dysfunctional workplaces experience a range of effects. These reactions include:

• You feel like throwing up the night before the start of your work week
• You can’t sleep because you’re worrying about what you’ll face at work the next day
• Your frustrated family wonders why you act so depressed all the time
• You try to deny the reality and rationalize your situation
• You have skyrocketing blood pressure
• You feel ashamed because you’re being controlled by another person and you don’t know how to stop it
• You can’t enjoy your time off, and days off are spent exhausted and lifeless; your desire to do anything is gone
• You begin to believe that you actually are inferior and have lost your self-respect
• You constantly feel agitated and anxious, and experience a sense of impending doom

This leads to:

• Anger
• Frustration and/or Helplessness
• A Sense of Vulnerability
• A Loss of Self Confidence
• Physical Symptoms
• Loss of Appetite
• Drinking More
• Psychosomatic Symptoms
• Panic or Anxiety
• Home life Tensions and Stress
• An Inability to Concentrate
• Low Morale and Low Productivity

In other words you’re burnt-out–i.e., “rode hard and put away wet.”

Why am I talking about this? “Because when you understand what and why this is happening to you, then you can let go of needing to fool yourself and stay in a dysfunctional workplace. You can muster the courage to find another job–which is really the only cure for a dysfunctional work environment.