We are all Just Prisoners Here of our Own Device
Don’t Blame Management, Work Through It
Friday was beautiful in Manhattan when I met up with a friend and colleague at the United Nations for coffee. We hadn’t talked in ages, catching up felt good. He’s a guy brimming with enthusiasm and hope. A good, competent, inspiring person.
But he’s stuck. He has a team that could do great work, but everything they do is overtly influenced by performance metrics. You know, the thing you hire big consulting firms to build for your organization so you can hold people “accountable”.
You know, the thing that Deming told you not to do because it was inhumane and soul-crushing 50 years ago.
This group could be doing great(er) things, but they are focused on literally ticking the boxes in an HR big-brother automation. How many meetings do you have of type 1? How many of type 2? Did you fill out this paperwork this month? Did you submit this report? Did you talk to these people?
And so on.
Until no one can innovate, no one can act, no one can improve, no one can enjoy their jobs because they are feeding the beast.
Meanwhile, over the brown river in Brooklyn, there is a startup that languishes under a similar problem. They don’t have an HR department breathing down their necks to assess assumed “performance” (though they are trying desperately to do so). They do have a general confusion about what the company does, who does it, and what individuals should be doing at any point in time to make happy customers.
In this company, there is not a clear division of labor, not a constancy of purpose, and not a shared understanding of the potential of the organization. People simply don’t know what is going to happen next, therefore they shut down. It’s no wonder “productivity” is low. Management reads this as a need for them to act because the staff is not acting. They are therefore creating a whole new system of working that they believe will cure their “productivity problem.” Soon, their teams will be in the same boat as the UN.
Same tune, different scale.
In both cases, management, with somewhat the best intentions, are building systems and foisting them upon the people actually trying to do good work. In neither case did those building these systems sit down with those providing the value and say, “what can we do to make you professionally satisfied that we are doing everything we can to build value and make things better?”
For the UN team, there are so many layers that have created this system, it is functionally or practically impossible to change it.
For the startup, there is only one layer, but it is easier to resign and find another job than fight with that layer.
This means stagnation for the UN team, turnover for the startup.
For both it means time, energy, and money spent doing the unnecessary and draining precious attention from the necessary.
We are the walls, we are the prisoners
A good working environment is our prerogative. It’s not just nice to have because we’d like to have work not be annoying, it is necessary to have in order for our organizations to be successful.
This means that the UN and startup teams have exactly the same challenge.
How can I do my work in the best way possible despite the organization I work in?
Within the bubble of the UN team, they need to figure out how to meet the letter of the law for the reporting system while still meeting the true spirit of the United Nations which is to foster a more collaborative, peaceful, and inter-dependent world. They need to be able to define the best way to achieve their individual mission (provide value) and innovate new, interesting, and ultimately more successful products. This is not impossible. It just takes focus and allaying the fear in people that the punitive system has created.
Within the bubbles of the teams at the startup, they need to figure out how to implement the new ideas from management and, at all costs, avoid becoming silo’ed, dissociated, or stymied by new metrics or confusing direction. They should always be looking for new ways to please the customer, even if it breaks the rules of their productivity metrics. This is also not impossible, it just takes focus and allaying the fear in people that past confusion and current distrust has created.
In both cases, teams should expect push-back from the system as they find their optimal ways of working. In both cases, teams should have a strong spine. But, in both cases, the teams should recognize that they are currently working in prisons they had a hand in building. Yes, others shaped the prison, but by sitting back and watching the construction, they are as complicit as the bricklayer.
We helped build our prisons, we can open the doors.
About Jim
Jim Benson is the creator and co-author (with Tonianne DeMaria) of the best seller: Personal Kanban. His other books include Why Limit WIP, Why Plans Fail, and Beyond Agile. He is a winner of the Shingo Award for Excellence in Lean Thinking and the Brickell Key Award. He and Tonianne teach online at Modus Instituteand consult regularly, helping clients in all verticals create working systems. He regularly keynotes conferences, focusing on making work rewarding and humane.
