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The FAE
Over the years, I’ve read quite a few books and articles on managing the soft side of an organization. In many of these info sources, I’ve seen the term FAE = Fundamental Attribution Error mentioned. The FAE represents the tendency of a manager to instinctively and unthinkingly blame a person’s character and/or work ethic for under-performance. The real cause, which cannot possibly be true in a corpo manager’s conditioned mind, is likely that his/her inability to create, nurture, and continuously sustain a helpful, supportive, learning work environment is killing productivity and creating under-performers.
Of course, the FAE cannot account for all under-performance in an absolute sense. There are self-made underperformers (like BD00) in every org, regardless of the quality of the surrounding work environment.
Contrasting Cultures
Because it’s a numerically unquantifiable and highly spiritual topic, I’ve always been fascinated by the subject of “company culture”. Leaders can’t directly create and control the cultural behavior they want in their org. At best, they can try to put an environment and set of incentives in place so that the culture they want spontaneously emerges.
IMHO, the most effective method for catalyzing the formation of a desired culture is to lead by example. As Ghandi once said, “be the change you’d like to see in the world”. When executives behave in contradiction to the culture they want, they deserve what they get – an apathetic, mistrusting, and disengaged workforce. Blech, and meh.
Here’s a great and short article that compares four radically different, but financially successful, company cultures: four cultures. Since they’re all deemed successful , there is no one perfect culture that an org can strive for.
Which cultural environment would you like to work in?
Prioritized Value
Obviously, everyone who contributes to a business’ success is important. However, because of compensation discrepancies and obvious differences in the way various groups of people are treated, management clearly has a prioritized list of what it thinks is more important – regardless of what is espoused.
Since everyone has their own agenda and subjective reasons for perceiving what and who is most important for a successful business, here’s my list, in order of decreasing priority:
- The products the company sells (well duhhhh!)
- The people who design, build, test, deliver, install, and maintain the product portfolio.
- The people who train the customers and serve as the front line customer interface when problems occur.
- The people who sell the products.
- The business overhead groups
- Management
My list is driven by the perception that the direct, hands-on creation and sustenance of value for customers is king. Everything else is secondary. A second (maybe the first?) driver is the fact that I’m a product designer, builder, and maintainer. See, I told you that everyone has their own agenda 🙂
Based on my observations over the years, the managements of all mediocre, follow-the-herd, companies have a a prioritized list that is the exact inverse of mine. Because of this clash of core values, I don’t have much professional respect (which is not the same as personal respect for individuals) for the guild of management.
What’s on your list?
Rappers And Cabbies
Look around you. How many people in your organization are Reviewers And aPprovers (RAPpers)? How many people are Creators And Builders (CABbies)? Which types of members are more valued by your organization?
Since managers (especially the higher up you go in the hierarchy) are most likely to be RAPpers, the odds are high that rappers are perceived to be more valuable than cabbies in your organization. Typically, the bigger the org, the more valued the rappers.
Rappers rarely have good ideas. If a rapper comes up with the occasional good idea, they usually keep it to themselves, especially if it’s too different from the norm. The risk is too high for rejection and rappers can’t have that. Rappers are too concerned about looking infallible. They have an image to uphold.
Cabbies, on the other hand, come up with all kinds of ideas, both good and bad. They are less inhibited by the need to look infallible. However, in a rapper dominated environment, most cabbies have a tough time externalizing their ideas for fear of rejection too. After all, they’re human.
When a business is created from scratch, most, if not all, the founding members are both rappers and cabbies. Because good ideas are plentiful and flow freely, the business thrives and grows for a while. However, over time, the usual consequence of growth is that more and more members transform into rappers. The conventional MBA thinking is that rappers are needed to weed out bad ideas and control growth. Fewer ideas get generated and the business starts stagnating. In the extreme, the rappers grow to vastly outnumber the cabbies and voila, a stifling and static bureaucracy is created.
The sad thing is that every human being who walks the face of the earth is born with the innate ability to become a cabbie. However, since western societies value rappers over cabbies, most people ignore and suppress their cabbie talent. To the detriment of all, they unconsciously strive to become rappers.
Not Of This Earth
Did you ever hear of a company named SEMCO? If not, then you’re missing out on one of the greatest corporate success stories on the planet. The CEO, Ricardo Semler, is perhaps the smartest and most courageous executive to ever lead a for-proft company. Semco and Semler are so different and “out there” that they may not be of this earth.
Check out these snippets (followed by my snarky comments) from the SEMCO Survival Manual:
“Only people who have respect for their followers can be leaders.“
Amen. How does SEMCO determine which people can become, and remain, a leader in their organization? Read on.
“There is no space at the Semco Group for formalities. The doors are always open and people should say what they really think, without worries or inhibitions.”
Unlike the vast majority of corpos that are clones of each other, there’s no “checking your personality at the door” at Semco.
“Unions are an important method of protecting workers. Unionization is free within the company. The Semco Group believes that constant relationships with unions are healthy for the company and the employees. The presence of union members at the company is always welcome.“
Rather than taking the standard corpo “unions are enemies” stance, SEMCO treats unions as partners. Wow, what a concept.
“Based on the fact that everyone can say what they think, rumors and gossip should not be stimulated. Any attempt to harm another person is looked on very seriously. Take part and speak openly of what you are thinking in order to improve things.“
Wow, more weird concepts, “saying what you think” and “speaking openly“. How uncorpo and disrespectful of the SEMCO leadership for promoting such lunacy in writing.
“Every six months you will fill in a questionnaire and say what you really think about your immediate superior.”
Cool rule, eh? Every six months you get to say how you feel about your “leader“. If he/she isn’t measuring up, they get demoted.
“Have an opinion, put yourself forward as a candidate, always say what you think – do not be just another cog in the wheel. State your opinion about everything that interests you, even if you weren’t asked for it. Be active about your feelings.”
OMG! Stating your opinion even when you aren’t asked for it? Arrrrgh! More blasphemy that should be punishable by death. Feelings in the workplace? There’s no place for expressing feelings in the workplace. Feelings are for the weak and un-promotable.
“We want everybody to participate; opinions will always be welcome and should be spontaneous.”
Spontaneous espousal of opinions? More sacrilege that is unacceptable at 99% of all corpo clones. In the land of the clones, before publicly stating your opinion, you must always think it over carefully and ensure that your words won’t offend a single soul – especially one with a big title and high stature. If the words will offend anyone, then keep your piehole shut.
“Watch the results closely and ask any questions you want – there are no issues that cannot be discussed. “
OMG again! There are no “undiscussable topics” at SEMCO? That can’t be. They’re lying through their teeth. It’s obvious that this policy can’t be applied in practice.
After reading all the above lies, I’m convinced that SEMCO doesn’t exist. No company can do all that, make money, and stay in business. No freakin’ way. If SEMCO-styled companies do exist in the good ole USA, they must be found out and closed down at all costs. It’s unacceptable to “us” real capitalists to operate a company in such an unpatriotic way. Quick, someone mobilize the corpo SWAT team. We’re goin’ on a kill mission to snuff out this abomination.
Pile On The Rules
Two Playbooks
When revenues and/or profits go flat or they start eroding, one of the 3 textbook moves that a mediocre company usually make is to reorganize (yet again). The other two moves in the utterly uncreative and standard MBA playbook are: 2) fire people; 3) instill fear via coercion and adding more rigid/constraining processes to extract more productivity from the value creation team at the bottom of the corpo hierarchy. Sometimes, especially in a time of crisis, all three actions are executed. Notice that all 3 moves are attempts to cut costs and not to raise revenues. Raising revenues requires exploring, discovering, and finding new customers along with developing successful new products that open up new markets. These actions require creativity, innovation, new ways of thinking, leadership, and courage. Sadly, these attributes are not the forte of mechanistic and Newtonian MBAs who are trained to solely look at data and compute fancy state-of-the art derivative business metrics.
When a company reorganizes, which is the least painful action that can be applied to the productive members at the bottom of the org, grand new titles are created, groups are renamed, and new layers are added/subtracted. Management temporarily feels better and optimism permeates the top of the stratified pyramid. The people down in the dirty boiler room know better. Since the reorg usually consists of shuffling the same people with the same old crusted mindsets into new positions, no deep and lasting change happens. If, during the reorg, people with new ideas are promoted from the bottom or brought in from the outside, they are quickly “set in their place” by the old guard that remains. They get absorbed by the borg. Blech.
Imposers And Imposees
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” – George S. Patton
Isn’t it amazing at how people and groups, especially those in positions of authority, are always exhorting others to perform work exactly the way that they want the work to be done? Instead of carefully clarifying “what” needs to be done, which is much more difficult and requires leadership over management, the “imposers” obsess over every little detail of the “how” – which is management over leadership. Leaders focus on the “what”, but managers obsess over the “how”. What’s really mind-boggling, is that if you ask an imposer for helpful examples of excellence that they’ve personally created before they were promoted from an imposee to an imposer, you get some kind of evasive smokescreen answer, or some combo of body and facial movement that conveys this message: “it’s taboo for you to ask that question”. When that happens, credibility and professional respect, extremely tough to earn but easily lost, go right down the crapper. Is asking for leadership-by-example a disrespectful thing to do? In dysfunctional orgs where there are few, if any leadership-by-examples of excellence, asking probing questions is considered an act of subordination that is not easily forgiven or forgotten.
Under the veil of “industry best practices”, and the unspoken but clearly understood directive that imposees are required to learn the details of the “how” fully and instantaneously on their own time, the pounding into submission by imposers continues. The pounding only stops when enough camouflage has been generated by the imposee(s) to anesthesize the imposers into thinking that they’ve prevailed. It’s only a temporary high. Sooner or later, everyone finds out, sometimes spectacularly, that the neglected “what” is FUBAR. In dysfunctional organizations that behave in accordance with these “industry worst practices”, it’s no wonder that the majority of employees become cynical, apathetic, disengaged, and disgruntled camouflage creators.
“You do not lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
So, am I a “do as I say not as I do” imposer and hippocrate? Well, I try not to be one, but I might be failing miserably at it. Judge for yourself by reading one or more of the rants on this blog. Do I overdo it sometimes or, uhhh, always? Decide for yourself.
A Classic Response
In a product development organization, when schedules are consistently missed, costs are rising, and profits are decreasing, a classic management response is to add more “oversight” to turn things around. This sincere, but often counterproductive response to deteriorating performance, exacerbates the mess by adding more cost and further slowing progress.
The above figure graphically shows the deterioration in performance over time ignited by the “classic response” to perceived poor execution. The additions to the management team somehow magnify the illusion of control that managers think they have over the product development/maintenance process. The act of piling on more management serves as an anesthesia that temporarily relieves the pain of poor performance. When the numbers show that performance hasn’t improved, the next step is to keep the top heavy structure in place, but replace one or more members of the management team with “proven” managers. Sick city.
So what’s an alternative to the “classic response”? Take a look at the figure below. In this response, the product manager rolls up his/her sleeves and gets dirty with the product development team. She dives deep into the product infrastructure and scours the landscape for missing information, erroneous information, and “camouflage”. Armed with this realistic, unfiltered “status” data, effective decisions can be made and productive direction can be given. In addition, by visibly doing some non-status-taking and non-schedule-hawking work, credibility and trust (which are difficult to acquire but easy to lose) are gained.
Sadly, during the transition from doer to manager, an automatic mindset switch occurs. Instead of growing into a 3D status taker plus schedule jockey PLUS, most importantly, a helper, only the first two responsibilities are internalized. “I’ve arrived and I don’t have to do any hard, messy work anymore”. Even worse, upper management innocently, but surely, encourages this post-transition mindset because it’s the same mindset that guides their behavior. Bummer.
“You have to know a lot to be of help. Learning is slow and tedious. You don’t have to know much to cause harm. It’s fast and instinctive.” – Rudolph Starkermann
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