There Must Be a Better Way, Part I

I had an influential chemistry teacher in high school who was steadfast in his belief that if you truly understood something you could make it, break it, and put it back together again. It's a wise and valid concept. Even so, it's somewhat limiting given that you end up with exactly what you started with. You may have demonstrated that you understood it, but what about the ability to improve it?

For that reason, with all due respect Mr. Nelson, let's take the concept a step further. If you truly understand something and can apply experience, intelligence, and creativity you should be able to make it, break it, and put it back together again better than before.

I mean really, who wants the same old mouse trap when we can make one that works better? Similarly, who wants the same old, traditional, hierarchical, inefficient, incentive-killing, commitment-sapping, and passion-crushing work place when we can make one that inspires and produces significantly better performance than the ones currently littering the business landscape?

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Let's consider the work place and begin with a look at how it's currently configured in the vast majority of organizations on the planet. (For purposes of brevity, we'll limit this discussion to organizations only on Earth.) Specifically, let's consider how the typical organization often transforms independent, enthusiastic, energized, passionate people into clock-watching, order-taking, overly-cautious, rule-bound, excessively-obedient, survival-oriented employees. (Think that too harsh? Just ask the 85% -- 85 percent! -- of those who said they were less than 'fully engaged' in their work in a 2005 study of 86,000 workers worldwide by Towers Perrin, a consulting firm and my alma mater.) If we truly understand how organizations do this so effectively, we should be able to design an organization that attracts top performers, energizes its people, breeds creativity, and fosters passion with one unifying purpose in mind: To blow away the competition.

So, what how do most organizations undermine and, often, extinguish the enthusiasm and change-the-world energy many first bring to work -- and, in the process, limit bottom-line performance? Let us count the ways.

Step 1: Assign you to a 'caste'. The first part of the transformation, immediately following being hired, involves the assignment of a job title, which has likely been created and benchmarked extensively by the human resources function. The job title defines who you are and where you fit in the organization. In doing so, the job title specifies the class or caste within which you will operate, the extent of your freedom to innovate, the advancement opportunities available to you, and your earning potential. If you're lucky, you even get a business card with the job title on it -- to remind you and everyone in the organization of your level. And since the job has been benchmarked in other like-companies, your caste level is known throughout the vast business community. For as we all know, Customer Service Representative I is completely different and far superior to Customer Service Representative II, regardless of company, right? Or is it the other way around?

Step 2: Place you in a specific 'box' within a fixed organization structure. The next element of the transformation process involves putting you in a 'box' -- where your job is located -- within the larger organization structure. The box defines to whom you report, who may report to you, who your peers may be, and the unit within the larger organization in which you will operate. The 'level' of the box in the organization's hierarchy also reinforces what you already know: Your caste. As you'll soon learn, the box in which you're in is communicated to everyone in the company. For this reason, everyone else knows your caste, too, and will likely treat you accordingly. (Curious how boxes define jobs on an org chart. Maybe it's something about surrounding each job and each person with walls.)

Step 3: Limit independence, creativity by thoroughly defining your job. The next step in the transformation is one of education. Here, you are given instruction on precisely how to do your job. (The lower the caste level, the greater attention to detailed instruction.) Never mind that you are intelligent, may have experience elsewhere, or have done a similar job before. Instead, you are taught how this job is done in this company. While there are undoubtedly benefits in careful instruction, part of the teaching typically emphasizes how we do this job here. With the message being quite clear: That deviation is not appropriate. Thus limiting creativity, innovation and personal style. And to make it that much more clear that the company is serious about this, you will have a 'manager' who will oversee your work and help you perform your job the way it's to be done here.

(Are you with me so far? Good.)

Step 4: Teach you what's permissible and especially what's not. A critical step in the transformation comes during the first few weeks of work and is typically delivered informally. Your manager, coworkers, and/or a 'buddy' will explain the unwritten rules of the organization. Importantly, these 'rules' are typically behaviors to be avoided. Like, for example, 'Pushing back on ideas here is frowned upon.'. (Translation: Don't disagree.) Or, 'Here, we play nice.'. (Translation: Don't disagree.) Or, 'We keep our emotions in check.' (Translation: Don't disagree with any enthusiasm.) Interestingly, these rules are often communicated in a commiserating tone, as if the person is saying, 'I don't make the rules here, but they are what they are.'. Soon you too will be asked to teach these rules to others entering the organization.

Step 5: Promote 'sameness'. An essential part of the transformation process requires you to learn that most people in the organization are treated essentially the same, regardless of performance or potential. This is especially true of your entire caste. Try to overlook the poorer performers in your midst. We all know who they are, don't we? Despite the demotivating aspects of their continued employment, as well as the revelation that the company doesn't really mean that performance and contribution are important or that winning in the market is something the company is serious about, treating people similarly is common to most organizations.

Step 6: Redefine 'personal growth', 'advancement'. Toward the end of your first year of work, you may be fortunate enough to sit with your manager to discuss your career. Here you'll begin to learn that your idea of career growth and your manager's view of career growth are largely dissimilar. This is likely due to the fact that you equate promotion to 'getting a higher level job with more authority and more money'. Your manager, in contrast, explains that 'advancement' means taking a series of 'lateral' jobs. (Translation: Jobs of equal stature and pay in other parts of the organization.) And while learning more about the organization may make you more valuable over time, somehow the basic concept of 'moving up in the organization' has gotten lost. There's a specific reason for this: In most hierarchical companies, there simply isn't any room to move up. So, out of necessity and rather than stating the obvious, companies have instead changed the definition of 'promotion'. Clever, no? Learning that real promotion is unlikely is a vital step in the passion-draining transformation process.

Step 7: Distribute rewards without sufficient transparency. Lastly, you will learn that rewards -- opportunities to work on 'cool' projects, promotions, pay increases, bonuses -- are given out with insufficient explanation and often no visibility to the rationale. Disconnecting the distribution of rewards from performance and contribution produces the essential question asked by a vast majority of employees worldwide: 'What's the point of working hard, of trying to produce outstanding results, of helping my company excel?' Once you pose that question, the transformation is complete.

That's the way it's done. Seven steps requiring about a year. And while not intentional, the undermining or fully stripping of all that drives many of us to produce outstanding results at work is definitely the outcome. Just ask those around you. Our bet is that 85% will agree.

By the way, thank Henry Ford. Hierarchy, closely-managed workers assigned to specific, carefully-structured jobs was something he championed. Given his success, others quickly copied Ford's approach to organizations. The problem is that those days are gone. Long gone. A new model is needed if organizations are to thrive -- hey, if they're to survive -- in our technology-driven, fiercely-competitive, ever-changing world.

The question now is how to build a better organization, one capable of attracting highly talented, creative, passionate people and mobilizing them to blow away the competition.

Come back next week. We'll talk.