Disengaged Workers are Our Fault!

The world of business is not an easy place. Entrepreneurs and executives live on a knife's edge daily between success and ruin. A stroke of luck, and they are purchasing a yacht and sailing the Bahamas, or one lousy quarter, and could lose their homes. It explains the manic-depressive behavior of business leaders. It also illustrates the frustration particular business leaders feel with their employees. Today, I want to discuss what the Agile community can do to help. 

Jon Clifton at the Gallup organization talks about slower economic growth and lower productivity becoming a significant problem in the next decade. The price of this decline could cost over $8.8 trillion over the next ten years. It is an astounding amount of money, or approximately 9% of the global gross domestic product. The reason for this decline is simple, according to Clifton. Workers in all levels of business organizations are disengaged. 

To borrow a phrase from my more Marxist friends, a disengaged worker is an alienated worker. Disengaged employees do the bare minimum work because they know that additional advancement or compensation will not arrive, so they do not make any more effort than necessary. For those that follow Tik Tok, younger people call it 'quietly quitting.' The structures designed to discourage innovation and change in the business add to the toxic mix. Inertia like this ensures everyone stays in their place, and the pipeline of products generates a stable amount of income and profit. It is a recipe for mediocrity, and I have never met someone who likes to be mediocre.  

As an agile coach or scrum master, how do you fight against this pernicious system of mediocrity? The first step is removing the perverse incentives that many companies use on their employees. I remember working on a software project which had to be swift to market, and many of us put in overtime to make it happen. I asked what would be the reward for all the hard work. The response from my manager was that we would keep our jobs. The project added an extra million dollars to the bottom line. An executive received a bonus, the shareholders an extra penny on the dividend check, and I got to keep my job. Incentives like that discourage innovation and undermine morale. After thirty years of treating employees like this, productivity is falling after the great recession, the cruelty of the forty-fifth president, and a global pandemic. Knowledge workers have shifted their priorities and want to concentrate on supporting their families and following their individual goals. Business leaders need to change, or they will be leading empty organizations that do nothing. 

The first step is to build out from the organization's middle and think of the middle layer of the organization as a coaching cohort. For a long time, managers enforced rules and micromanaged employees. The situation needs to change. We must take a coaching approach to people, guiding them with objectives, rapid feedback, and incentives that are not perverse. If a development team of ten people generates a million dollars in sales revenue, one percent of that is a healthy bonus for the extra work to gain the business. Heroic efforts deserve respect and recognition; otherwise, you are just in the business of exploitation. 

I am encouraged that some businesses are getting the message. According to Forbes magazine, the virtual assistant company Time Etc is shifting out their managers for coaches; there is one coach for every six employees. The result speaks for itself, and the business improved revenue by twenty percent. Imagine if we create incentives and business cultures where people feel valued. An improvement of 20% is an incredible accomplishment and will lift up plenty of people. With some luck, we can get a slice of those 8.8 trillion dollars left on the table by poor business leadership. 

Until next time. 

The Long Road to Trust

Trust is one of the easiest things to lose and the hardest to earn. It is like a bank account with individuals depositing and withdrawing confidence in a lifelong series of transactions. Money may be the determinant of value in the business world, but everything would come to a grinding halt if trust collapses. As a leader and coach, we must maintain trust in our businesses. 

It is a difficult time in the business community. Businesses are cutting budgets to hoard cash and control in anticipation of a possible recession. Companies attempt to flatten organizations by cutting staffing levels. CEOs justify returning people to the office by using ancillary evidence and falling real estate prices, breaking the promise of remote work. It creates feelings of anxiety and distress. I feel those emotions regularly, and I struggle not to inflict them on family and friends. 

According to Sandra Sucher from the Harvard Business School, much of the anxiety is the breakdown of trust between business leaders and the workers who create the value. According to Sucher, “Leaders of all kinds…are failing some of the expectations people have for how they should be treated.”  The most significant disconnect is working from the office. Hybrid working plans are a hodge podge with people coming into the office to get on electronic meetings, which they could have taken from the home. Double standards applied to those working in the office and remotely create further resentment in mixed work environments. Double standards for workers and managers reveal a deep corruption in a business where workers see leaders looking after themselves instead of the entire industry. Many people in business have forgotten that rank has responsibilities commensurate with privileges.  

As agile practitioners, we are in a difficult position because we must build trust in organizations where it has been repeatedly violated. Our principal duty is to communicate openly and honestly. Listen to the challenges of others and be truthful. From that point, business people begin to increase the deposit of trust in the organization.  

It is going to take a long time to happen. Employees are tired, and the aftermath of COVID-19 has forced employees to change their priorities. Business priorities need to shift if organizations are to remain profitable or collapse into a puddle of mud. I have worked at two organizations where I witnessed this happen. Self-awareness, trust, and empathy are the only ways to escape this spiral of trust debt.  

Until next time. 

Networked Leadership is Better

The global economy is a rough place. The hours and pressure are extreme, and often you work for people who do not appreciate your sacrifices. It takes an emotional toll and impacts your personal and family life. It is why I spend much of my career advocating for new approaches to work. I authored a blog about moving from business transformation to one centered and delivery. The last and most crucial piece of that puzzle is a change in leadership styles because the old ones are beginning to fail. 

The business world is a feudal system with power concentrated at the top and responsibility and labor holding up the power structure. Since this system is not democratic and only answers to shareholders, it has all the dysfunctions and drawbacks of other authoritarian systems. Information is hoarded and used as a weapon. Anyone who upsets the status quo is considered a threat, and finally, corruption lingers in organizations and erodes their ability to provide the goods and services it offers. It is bleak. 

What makes matters worse is business leaders with a sense of privilege and entitlement, similar to monarchs from the dark ages. They bark orders and expect unquestioning obedience and execution. I have spent my career around these individuals, and it is never easy because they have yet to experience hearing the word no. Unfortunately, these individuals often rise in corporate organizations because of their entitlement and connections. As a result, these leaders' promises keep the people who work with them stuck in impossible situations. Authoritarian organizations look strong on the outside but are brittle because they struggle to respond to outside pressure. 

I have recommended more networked organizations resembling a rhizome rather than a traditional command and control structure. Organizations like this rely on expertise and collaboration to get things done. These systems still have leaders but are more interested in accomplishing goals than preserving personal power. 

I think about this whenever there is a discussion about returning to the office. Business leaders from Elon Musk to Jamie Dimon believe that working from home hurts business efficiency despite countless studies contradicting this perception. Business leaders like Diamon and Musk cannot imagine any other way of working. They can afford to live close to the office and have easy commutes. People with this perspective also outsource childcare to spouses and nannies. Finally, since they are monarchs in office, they can lord over others. It may work for these industry captains, but it only works for some of the staff, particularly women and the families they support. For business leaders accustomed to bossing people around, it looks like mutiny. The truth is that employees deliver value to customers and that being a boss undermines this relationship. Organizations that are more networked and focused on customers will be more successful in the long run.

I look forward to being proven correct about this. 

Until next time. 

Your Staff is Not Lazy They Are Exhausted.

The most dramatic event of the American Civil War was called Picket's Charge. During the third and final day of the battle of Gettysburg, fifteen thousand rebel troops attempted to overrun gun positions in the Union lines. The Union greeted the assault with a hailstorm of lead and steel. When it was over, six thousand rebel troops were killed or wounded. The survivors of the attack shambled back to Confederate lines, and General Picket, exhausted and injured, told Robert E. Lee, "I have no division now." Robert E. Lee had pushed his luck and men as far as possible. The confederacy would never invade the North again and be slowly crushed by Union forces until the eventual surrender at Appomattox two years later. Business leaders can learn plenty of wisdom from the story of Picket's charge. 

It is no secret that employee productivity numbers have fallen. The trend began after the subprime mortgage crisis and has continued uninterrupted since. I have some suspicions about why this is happening. First, the increase in inequality in the workplace means that workers have less incentive to be more productive because they are not sharing the benefits of the growing economy. Next, the push for economic efficiency and maximization of shareholder value is cutting staffing to unsustainable levels. Often one or two people are responsible for doing the work of five or six. Naturally, the result will not get done conscientiously, and the people doing it will not approach it with any sense of craftsmanship. Finally, business leaders straining to accommodate the shifting demands of the global economy are attempting to force change through organizations they created to resist change, causing exhaustion in the workforce. They are like Robert E. Lee pushing their people too far. 

These three trends are why there is such a substantial decline in productivity. We can fight it, but it will take years of effort and a paradigm shift in business leadership. First, we need to be more generous with how we compensate employees. Everyone who manufactures or provides services to others should be able to afford these same products and services. Walmart using the food-stamp system to help their employees eat is madness. Next, businesses need to improve the resiliency of their organizations so they can respond to changes. Finally, business leaders must embrace agile reformation because rigid organizations are less likely to survive. It means pushing decision-making down to the people who get the work done and allowing more flexibility to address problems rather than via a bureaucratic process. 

By doing these three things, we will see improvements in employee productivity and better customer satisfaction. Profits will increase accordingly; otherwise, we will exhaust ourselves just like Picket did during his charge. 

Until next time.