Category: Articles

How Useless Are “Performance Standards” In The Workplace Today?

Posted on by Maya Mehta

There is a common belief that for change to occur in an organization you must set high-performance standards and develop clear measures against that standard. These performance standards, we’re told, must be consistent across the culture and approved by top management, otherwise, they will not be effective. This belief is so ingrained that it has become the standard operating procedure, and questioning it might seem hopelessly idealistic.

But have you noticed that some of the things the world values most RESIST STRICT MEASUREMENT OF PERFORMANCE STANDARDS?

Consider the “softer” values such as trust, integrity, and creativity. You’ve likely noticed they’re often the ones with the most power to shape the world around us, yet these seem to stubbornly resist being subjected to a standard of measurement.

So, how can you reframe the conversation around needing measurable performance standards as a pre-requisite for producing the kind of results and the type of workplace that promotes the common good?

What’s wrong with Performance Standards

If you’re operating on the assumption that change is driven by measures and standards, you’ll set new performance standards and create universal measures against those standards. Perhaps you would establish an oversight committee to measure performance standards and adherence to those new standards.

In the case of unsatisfactory performance, you might conclude that efforts failed because the standards were not high enough and the measures were not sufficiently accurate.

This happens time and time again until a change effort is made, creating a new set of standards and measures to drive-up performance. You’ve likely seen this cycle play out in the proliferation of high-stakes standardized testing in public education.

Let’s reframe Performance Standards

To be honest, we need measurable performance standards. We all want to know what is required of us and how we are doing. We’re not proposing getting rid of measurable standards altogether. Instead, we propose a shift to focus on who sets the standards and measures and how they are used.

Too often measurable performance standards are used as a control device, not a mechanism for learning. This flows from a particular mode of thinking grounded in problem-solving. It is the engineering mind that elevates standards and measures to the level of dogma and ideology. This is fine for engineering projects.

But the idea that we can engineer human development is more mythology than fact.

Standards-setting has become part of the class struggle in society, where one class of people is setting standards for another. Legislators set them for teachers, management set them for workers, professional guilds set them for their members. They may start with sincere intent, but they soon become exclusionary and punitive. They become a way to limit access to membership, force compliance, and keep those who were first through the door in their positions of power.

What Performance Standards matter to YOU?

The solution to over-surveillance, isolation, and protecting the status quo is to have people close to the learning and development, the work, or the service struggle with installing proper performance standards for their local environment.

Ask people to define the performance that will have meaning for them. Then have them talk about how they want to hold themselves accountable. This reduces the possibility that measurable performance standards will become punitive. Once measures become punitive, people will work to outsmart them to survive; learning decreases, and energy that should be going toward achieving the work is replaced by subversive efforts to “beat the system.”

How does this work?

Instead of a centralized mandate that is rolled out across the culture of the organization, have the performance standards designed by those who are being measured.

Then a few guiding principles should follow.

Firstly, it is essential to be realistic about predictability. Secondly, value longer-term, qualitative measures. Remember: even if you cannot measure it, it might still be worth doing. Most often what is measured are people’s methods and behavioral style. But what if you were to stop measuring people’s behavioral styles and start measuring business results and real outcomes?

Do you risk Quality Control?

Wait! How can management maintain quality when each unit, each workgroup, each team decides its own measures and performance standards? Don’t worry, there is still quality control. The difference is that is it maintained by team members and peer-to-peer agreements.

Rather than typical carrot-and-stick tactics, what if performance standards were negotiated between peers and then with bosses as the means of ensuring that commitments get fulfilled? These contracts would be between partners, so the expectations and commitments go both ways, with equal demands placed on each side.

The intent here is to eliminate coercion as the basis for getting results. These performance contracts are not tied to pay or punishment, though they may be tied to termination in extreme cases. We can fire people if they do not deliver on their promise. What is different is that we stop trying to improve employee performance by threatening sanctions, manipulating privilege, or withholding pay.

Do what matters most:

  1. Rather than create a central mandate, have the people closest to the work decide the standards appropriate for their local environment.
  2. Ask members of the peer group or team to define the measures that have meaning for them.
  3. Have peer groups decide how to keep themselves accountable, with bosses and employees serving to ensure commitments are fulfilled.

How to Create “Organizational Cooperation” that Succeeds for Clients and Citizens

Posted on by Maya Mehta

Pick your crisis: climate change, pandemics, political division, economic stagnation, international relations. When concerned members of society are faced with big obstacles, they cry out for like-minded groups to come together and effect a greater change. This clarion call urgently summons interdependent agencies together for meetings. The goal of this organizational cooperation is always to find ways of collaborating to solve the issue at hand. These meetings, these gatherings are innumerable.

So, why do people often complain and define the problem as one of little to no cooperation among organizations?

This complaint may hint at a classic consulting scenario that requires reframing.

If You Acted On This Definition

If you used the standard meeting model, you would invite the groups to talk and share their concerns, and ideas. Next, you would invite them to agree on common goals, shared projects, develop a cooperation strategy, work out a schedule of milestones, and decide on the next meeting date.

Reframing “Organizational Cooperation”

Here’s the thing: Communication and defining common goals are not the problem.

If these were the problem, they would have been solved already. The problem between groups is territory, territory, territory.

They each have defined their boundaries tightly around their organizational structures. They think their mission is to do a good job within those boundaries. As a result, progress toward resolving the issue is episodic, at best. For change to really happen, the reality is that each group will have to yield territory and control.

This is a sour pill to swallow. They must confront the question: “What are you willing to give up for the sake of the larger purpose?”

What things?

They have to be willing to give up projects, budgets, and a piece of their identity if anything beneficial is going to happen for their citizens or clients. This requires trust.

Trust is built from telling the truth and from acts of surrender.

There is no other way to build the relational capital necessary for organizations to partner successfully. Trust is the ONLY way.

Avoid the Risk of Motion and No Movement

One word of caution.

Don’t buy the medicine that better communication is all you’ll need to get a good start. It will be the start…one that leads to a lot of motion and no movement.

Instead, you need to first create a condition for making a partnering agreement: All organizations must make meaningful sacrifices to create trust. If they choose not to make this necessary sacrifice and perhaps lose something in the process, then you will become a puppet in their negotiation strategy. It would help if you take a firm stand on this point early in the conversations when you have the most leverage.

When it comes to organizational cooperation, refuse to settle for the thought that because a gathering occurred and words were exchanged that anything meaningful happened. Instead, reframe the nature of the gathering by focussing on the core issue of why barriers to true cooperation persist. Address “why” they’re protecting territory.

In this way, organizations can come to the table as partners ready to take ownership for what they will sacrifice for the greater good. The investment of each organization’s sacrifice will create the bonds of trust necessary to make a change.

To act within this frame:

  1. Recognize that the problem between groups is territory, territory, territory.
  2. Present the organizations with this question: “What are you willing to give up for the sake of the larger purpose?”
  3. Create the following condition of participation: All organizations must make meaningful sacrifices to create trust as the foundation of a partnering agreement.

Learn about common good protocols and reimagining our collective well-being here.

Wanting Proof Positive: Reframing the “Measurable Outcomes” Problem

Posted on by Maya Mehta

One of the core beliefs of modern management is that if you cannot measure something, either it should not be undertaken or it does not exist. This conviction arises from our faith in the scientific method and the results-oriented outlook of the engineer and the economist. Thus, whenever a change is discussed, there will be an immediate demand for measurable outcomes and hard data that the change will improve the operations.

But what happens when what you value cannot be easily measured?

In fact, many of the things that matter most in your organization defy measurement. Let’s explore how to reframe the cult of measurability in order to ensure you pursue not only what “works” but what matters.

If You Acted On This Definition

If you’re starting with the aim of measurable outcomes, your course of action would include performing research to evaluate the project, and you’d likely bring in independent evaluators to do a pre-and post-intervention study.

Reframing “Measurable Outcomes”

Stop to think. You can measure the impact of a project to the extent that the organization can measure itself, which is a very elusive proposition in a human system. So what about a third party? The problem with bringing in outsiders to evaluate is that the evaluation has its own impact, and this may bring more interference than enlightenment.

Yet the economist in us justly wants to know how much this will cost. The engineer in us needs a test to affirm knowledge, a ruler to mark distance, a clock to demonstrate time. We justly want to know how to measure and know how we are doing. We need to know where we stand. But the question of measurable outcomes ceases to serve us when we think that measurement is so essential to being that we only undertake ventures that can be measured.

Measuring What Matters

Concrete measures can determine progress, but they do not really measure values. We pursue what matters independently of how well we can measure it. It is important to measure what we can, but to raise this question too early and to use it as a criterion that will determine whether or not to proceed runs the risk of worshipping too small a god.

What will matter most to us is the quality of experience we create in the world, not the quantity of results.

The real cost of creating something of value is emotional, not economic. What is most valuable cannot be purchased at a discount. The price of change is measured by our effort, our will and courage, and our persistence in the face of difficulty. The shift here is from an economic measure of cost to a personal measure of will.

Dealing With Doubt

It is important to recognize that our obsession with measurement is really an expression of our doubt. Doubt is fine, but no amount of measurement will assuage it. Doubt, or lack of faith, as in religion, is not easily reconciled, even by miracles, let alone by gathering measurable evidence on outcomes.

The wish to measure tightly is the recognition that every project has its own risks. Why not deal with the doubts and risks directly by naming them carefully right from the beginning? We cannot engineer human development, nor can we know it with the precision we might wish for. We can generate some data about the change, but most of it will be putting numbers on people’s feelings–that’s what surveys do. Why not just convene people every once in a while and ask them how it is going? Ultimately, we will know how we are doing by assessing the quality of our experience. If experience is such a good teacher, maybe it also knows how to measure.

To act within this new frame:

  1. Act on what matters, not just what works.
  2. Ensure you pursue what you truly value by asking the “why” questions before asking the “how” questions.
  3. Focus on quality of experience, not just quantity of results.

Where Else Is This Working? Reframing the “Guaranteed Success” Problem

Posted on by Maya Mehta

Business is risky. There is no way around it. You need to try new things to advance and yet you also somehow want a “guaranteed success.” Thus two major impulses are constantly in conflict: wanting to innovate and at the same time wanting the reassurance that what you are contemplating has been tried before. This is the paradox of success and safety.

How do you convince your stakeholders, and yourself, that the risks of the new venture are worthwhile?

The most attractive proof, of course, is an example of somewhere else the idea has worked well. This provides tangible evidence that this new opportunity will give you all-but-guaranteed success. But this is a false promise based on a faulty expectation. The answer is to reframe the problem.

If You Acted On This Definition

Based on the desire for a “guaranteed success” you would research examples of where what you propose is working. You would look for organizations in the same business as your client. You might arrange site visits, references, and a feasibility study.

Reframing “Guaranteed Success”

“Where else is it working?” seems like it’s a valid and compelling inquiry. Who would argue against learning from others? The problem is that the question perpetuates the belief that others know and we don’t. This does not mean that we cannot learn from others. It is just that asking “how” is a poor method of learning.

We learn by bearing witness to how others live their lives. We learn from the questions others have the courage to ask. We are more likely to be transformed from dialogue about what is real and what is illusion.

These conversations are qualitatively different from seeking methods and answers.

“Where else has this worked?” is a reasonable question, within limits. It is dangerous when it becomes an unspoken statement: If this has not worked well elsewhere, perhaps we should not do it.

The wish to attempt only what has been proven creates a life of imitation. We may declare we want to be leaders, but we want to be leaders without taking the risk of invention. The question can lead us down a spiraling trap: If what is being recommended or contemplated is, in fact, working elsewhere, then the next question is whether someone else’s experience is relevant to our situation—which, upon closer scrutiny, it is not.

The value of another’s experience is to give us hope, not to tell us how or whether to proceed.

While it is prudent to try to mitigate risk and do your homework, guaranteed success does not truly exist. Even if it is working somewhere else, there is no assurance that it will work here. Every new idea has to be customized locally. Although it is tempting, you risk making a false promise if you support the idea that a change can be imported with little risk into your client’s workplace. Although there may be much overlap in some details, there are always hidden factors that may have allowed success in one setting, but which would prevent it in another.

The Root: Doubt and Anxiety

So what can be done? The role of the consultant, in this case, is to help the client understand that behind their question of where it is working are doubt and anxiety. They have a wish for a guarantee that this “risky thing” will be successful. It would be strange if this were not present. Yet as a consultant working in partnership, you cannot make this promise because so much depends on the energy and investment of the client. Part of the work, therefore, is to help the client see that while wanting reassurance is natural, the expectation of a guarantee is driven by fear and is not realistic.

On the other side of the table, consultants can also face the tension between selling and consulting. You are really doing both but lean toward the consulting. Selling means your goal is to make the sale; consulting means the goal is to help the client make a good decision. Because there is a tension here, beware of any tendency to “oversell” a course of action, especially one that you have successfully pursued before. This inadvertently reinforces the false hope for “guaranteed success.”

Clients will make a better decision if they understand all that is required to make a change, especially at the local level. The field of consulting carries the shame of promising too much too soon. The search for what is working elsewhere might be useful, but can’t be a substitute for a willingness to try something new, with little more than your own faith as proof you are making a good decision.

To act in this new frame:

  1. Don’t assume that success elsewhere guarantees success here.
  2. Help the client and yourself by recognizing the place of doubt and anxiety in any new venture.
  3. Bring as much local knowledge to bear as possible. The more the idea is locally customized, the better chance it will succeed.

[Adapted from Peter Block, ‘Twelve Questions to the Most Frequently Asked Answers,’ The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook and Companion: A Guide to Understanding Your Expertise, 2001, pp. 401]

Taking It To Scale: Reframing the “Scalability” Problem

Posted on by Maya Mehta

Whenever a pilot project is successful, the question you can inevitably expect is “scalability.” How do you take this to scale and make the same thing happen across departments, or locations, or teams? It worked in one place, so let’s make it work in every place.

And let’s do it in a hurry.

For businesses under constant pressure to adapt and produce results, what could give a greater sense of safety than replicating “proven” methods?

But very often what worked in one place fails dismally in another.

This doesn’t mean the wish for scalability is wrong. But how can you reframe this classic problem in order to deliver the desired outcomes? Let’s explore.

If You Acted on This Definition

With the stated goal of taking the project “to scale,” your most likely course of action would be to standardize the elements of the pilot. Figure out the basic structure of the successful project and codify it into workable structures and procedures.

You would then obtain support from the top. Next, you would turn it into a program, hold a bunch of meetings, conduct training programs, set system-wide standards, and all the rest that has become stock in trade in change management.

Reframe “Scalability”

There is an underlying reason why this approach so often fails. Pilot projects work largely because people in one local site are engaged in creating them. Because they are locally engaged, they are able to act within the full scope of their own needs, circumstances, and knowledge. It is this act of engagement and creation that leads to high performance.

When you take something to scale and do it fast, the imaginative life is drained out of it. What you end up doing is to attempt to extract what is “universal” from what has worked locally. And usually, this means figuring out how to replicate certain outcomes rather than the creative processes that led to them. Therefore, when applied elsewhere, what once was a choice becomes coercion.

Nothing can be taken to scale. The success record of proliferation is poor.

The way to think about it is that, like politics, all change is local. You can’t easily copy and paste results from one locality to another. But what you can proliferate is the possibility of local invention following some loose guidelines and statements of purpose.

Don’t fall for the trap of thinking that top management is simply to blame for problems in “scalability.” Support from the top is not necessary to shape an organization of your choosing. Let top management set the mission. But every unit should be able to express its own vision of how best to organize and train itself in order to achieve that mission. This is the only way that the mission can be instantiated at the local level. Otherwise, the top’s inherent distance from the local circumstances will sabotage the ability to replicate the intended results.

Lastly, be prepared for this to take time. The wish to do something quickly is really a defense against local choice. It is the argument that we do not have time to engage a lot of people.

Don’t buy speed as an argument. Speed is a defense against depth and meaning. Nothing important happens quickly. Choose quality of experience over speed. The world changes from depth of commitment and capacity to learn.

To act within this frame:

  1. Don’t assume what worked “there” will work “here.”
  2. Engage local workers in the creative process of creating a vision for their unit.
  3. Go in for the long haul. Although engaging more people takes more time, it will produce more meaningful and resilient change.

[Adapted from Peter Block, ‘Twelve Questions to the Most Frequently Asked Answers,’ The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook and Companion: A Guide to Understanding Your Expertise, 2001, pp. 398-399]

When we offer a service primarily because clients want it, we have chosen commerce over care.

Fix Those People: Reframing the “Behavior Modification” Problem

Posted on by Maya Mehta

Behavior modification (or behavior change) is a classic human predicament that is reflected in the question: How do I get those people to change their behavior?

You might be a parent dealing with a toddler. Or a government official looking for compliance with a new policy. Or a business consultant trying to implement change in an organization. Whatever the relationship and mission, you will have wondered how exactly to get other people to act in the way you want. Let’s call these behavior modification schemes. Sometimes they are manipulative. But most often they are grounded in a good desire for the behavior you feel is in the group’s best interest.

In the workplace, this problem often takes forms such as:

  • How do you get them to adopt the new mission, the new business, or institutional reality?
  • How do you give them the skills they need for the new world?

Most likely, such questions are being asked by top management with regards to local groups and how they operate on the ground. But given that such behavior modification is notoriously difficult, how can the issue be reframed to create a better possibility?

If You Acted on This Definition

If the goal is taken as behavior modification, then it makes sense to start the modification by communicating and offering training in a big way. You would spend time defining the desirable behaviors, then design or purchase programs to meet those competencies. You would then train managers to conduct the programs and get the top leaders to endorse them. The end result, you should hope, would be the new behaviors being acted out across the organization. Problem solved. Right? Well…maybe not.

Reframing “Behavior Modification”

The thing is that “those people” are very unlikely to be the real problem. To add injury to the insult, wide-scale training will cost a lot and redirect resources away from the real problem. Plus, focusing on people’s deficiencies only reinforces them.

Change is more likely to happen when we capitalize on, and bring to bear people’s capacities, and gifts, and strengths.

Despite the claims of consultants and their intimate organizational champions, large-scale training has had a poor record of changing organizations. There is an uncomfortable truth here. As the economic beneficiaries of the training movement, consultants are reluctant to be accountable for the fact that most large change efforts have led to little change.

Consultants often hold on to the belief that if they had more top management support, things would have been different. But there is a false assumption beneath this belief.

The reality is that effective behavior modification throughout an organization is rarely dictated by a central mandate. It is much more likely to arise in response to circumstances on the ground.

Resist the “Fix” Mentality

This is why you must resist the “fix” mentality, where centralized control becomes the catch-all solution. Rather, local groups deciding what change and learning they need–with an emphasis on their underutilized capacities–is a faster and cheaper path to learning.

Here is the change in mentality you’ll need:

As a consultant, you are not in the behavior modification business but in the community-organizing business: Bringing local groups together, engaging them in questions of purpose, allowing for local variation wherever possible. These practices create relational equity. You can make the bet that this engagement effort will lead to a level of accountability that will make up for any “fixing” benefits that might accrue from the traditional strategy.

In summary, to act in this new frame:

  1. Focus NOT on people’s deficiencies but on their gifts and strengths.
  2. Challenge the assumption that top management is what ultimately drives organizational behavior.
  3. Resist the urge to “fix” things centrally. Instead, let local groups decide what they need to learn to face their reality.

[Adapted from Peter Block, ‘Twelve Questions to the Most Frequently Asked Answers,’ The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook and Companion: A Guide to Understanding Your Expertise, 2001, pp. 399-400]

Tom & Jerry: Reframing the “Conflict Resolution” Problem

Posted on by Maya Mehta

Tom and Jerry don’t work well together. Sure, every workplace faces relational difficulties at times. But this has gone beyond cat and mouse games. Their increasingly public tension is dragging the whole team down and disrupting the atmosphere. They simply have to work it out or nothing is going to get done. Conflict resolution is another classic consulting situation in which the presenting problem likely needs reframing, or else it will continue to reoccur.

As we’ve discussed in earlier articles, the majority of generic consulting situations require looking for the underlying dysfunction in the human system as opposed to the surface issue. But in the case of interpersonal conflict, the problem is eminently “human.” So what are some of the ways this common situation can be reframed for new possibilities?

If You Acted On This Definition

Taking the issue at face value, you meet with Tom and Jerry separately to hear their viewpoints, then bring them into the same room and use some mediation process to help them come together. There is sharing of grievances, perhaps some negotiation, and the hope is for the two parties to shake hands and start playing fair again.

Reframing “Conflict Resolution”

Conflict resolution is very valuable; that is not the question. The standard approach may well help in many instances. But there are just as many where the animosity seems insurmountable, and nothing seems to be working. This is where we need a new frame.

The first way to reframe this issue is to be careful to test whether Tom and Jerry want to work it out. Too often, the boss wants a resolution, but the combatants do not.

The simple question is to ask whether each party wants to win or work it out.

If one or both are so entrenched that they just want the other to simply disappear, then don’t move ahead. Conflict resolution strategies depend on a certain level of goodwill. If it does not exist, then surgery may be required.

Secondly, don’t make the mistake of believing that all conflicts are resolvable. They are not, and you lose your credibility, especially in your own eyes, by taking on a task that never had a chance.

Sometimes confronting the players with the belief that you cannot help them raises the stakes and wakes them to the cost of their conflict.

The Third Man

Lastly, consider that what seems to be a problem between two is often a problem among three. The person who asks us to get involved is often a player too. Be open to the possibility of a dysfunctional triangle and try to understand the role of the sponsor of the mediation, who might be unknowingly keeping Tom and Jerry at odds. If this is the case, Tom and Jerry will feel it. Ask them what role your sponsor plays in their relationship and what impact that has.

In summary, to act within this frame:

  1. Test whether the combatants themselves desire conflict resolution.
  2. Challenge the assumption that the conflict is in fact resolvable.
  3. Understand the role of the sponsor of the mediation.

[Adapted from Peter Block, ‘Twelve Questions to the Most Frequently Asked Answers,’ The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook and Companion: A Guide to Understanding Your Expertise, 2001, p. 400]

Define What You Mean: Reframing the “Clear Vision” Problem

Posted on by Maya Mehta

When tasked with implementing change in your organization, you may have found yourself in this position: The goal of change has been shared, presented, and discussed repeatedly. Yet you keep hearing the claim, “We need a clear vision of what we are moving toward.” 

This is another classic consulting situation, and it presents itself as a problem of definition. For instance, how do you define the difference between change and transformation? 

How do you define leadership, empowerment, the new economy, or the role of a middle manager? 

What is the new role of human resources? 

But for all the clamor about wanting definitions, many times, what is truly murky is the question, not so much the answers. This is an indicator that you need to reframe the issue at hand in order to get to the root. Let’s look at some thoughts on how to reframe the “clear vision” problem. 

If You Acted On This Definition

Taking the “clear vision” complaint at face value, you would spend a lot of time trying to define what is new in terms that people will understand. You would write it down. You would produce manuals and short brochures written in “lay terms” to describe that which is essentially a change in consciousness. Then, the ultimate attempt at creating a definition is the competency model: a comprehensive listing of the skills needed to be fully proficient at a job or role. Have you ever seen one that any human being could achieve?

Reframing The “Clear Vision” Problem

To reframe the clear vision problem, you need to see that the request for definition is often not a problem of clarity but an expression of disagreement. 

It is fine to make one attempt at definition. But most of the time, we have already done that, and yet the question persists. In this case, the thing to focus on is the request for us to define the term. If a definition is necessary, then what if you let those who ask the questions struggle with the answer for themselves?

What if the request for a clear vision has to do with roles? For years middle managers have wanted to know what their new role is. Well, after all this time, if they can’t figure it out, maybe there is no new role. The principle here is that you (as the questioner) have to translate language into your own setting and into your own experience. Sure, others can help a little, but they cannot do it for you. 

 

Learning Clarity Through Ambiguity

Dennis Bakke, head of AES, a very enlightened company that produces electrical power around the world, likes ambiguity in language. He says that if people are unclear about what something means, it forces them into a conversation about it, and that conversation leads to learning. 

Hearing a definition from another leads to memorization, not learning. The only definition that endures is the one that I myself have created. 

If people are unclear about what something means, it forces them into a conversation about it, and that conversation leads to learning.

Lastly, in this situation, it is important to realize that the wish for a clear vision is another form of the wish for safety. It is the desire to know where you are going before you go there. It is a desire for measurable, controlled outcomes. Ultimately, it is a longing for safety that does not truly exist. 

In the end, defining terms is an academic diversion from the more fundamental human questions involving risk, purpose, courage, and adventure. But here is the thing: real safety comes from the experience of discovery, acting in the face of your fears–not waiting to act until your fears have disappeared. It is not until you try something that you will realize that you will survive it.

So To Act In This New Frame For Clear Vision:

  1. Realize that persistent requests for definition are not a lack of clear vision but an expression of disagreement.
  2. Invite the person asking for the definition to struggle with it for themselves. This leads to conversations in which they will truly learn rather than memorize.
  3. Understand that the desire for a clear definition is masking a desire for safety. But real safety is found in acting in the face of our fears.

[Adapted from Peter Block, ‘Twelve Questions to the Most Frequently Asked Answers,’ The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook and Companion: A Guide to Understanding Your Expertise, 2001, pp. 401-402] 

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The Deadwood Dilemma: Reframing the “Low Performer” Problem

Posted on by Maya Mehta

There are few things that incite feelings of injustice at work as the perception of “freeloaders”…low performers, reaping benefit from other people’s work. There is at least one team member who is not pulling their own weight.

This is an accountability issue.

And we’ve found that early in every discussion about accountability and institutional reform, what follows is someone who will ask what they should do with the “deadwood.”

How do you handle low performers under this new world order?

In situations like these, the consultant’s task is to reframe the question to reveal the underlying issues rather than just deal with the surface-level…what we call the “presenting problem.”

The Presenting Problem: Deadwood

A member of the team is underperforming and dragging the whole team’s performance down. The rest of the team is frustrated that this low performer is benefitting without contributing their fair share.

If You Acted On This Definition

If you focus on dealing with “deadwood” then you’ll look at the issue as a performance management issue. You might:

  • Proceed by developing competency models to create objective measures to evaluate the lowest performers
  • Move to make performance improvement targets more clear and self-evident
  • Talk about offering exit packages to aid in “clearing the deadwood.

Reframing the “Low Performers” Problem

There is an embedded irony in channeling your focus on fixing the low performers or underachievers.

Why? Because if you’re successful in converting a low performer into a top performer, then another member of the team will have to become the lowest performer.

Oops. The end result is a self-perpetuating cycle.

You see, “deadwood” is really not the problem.

So what’s the real “Low Performers” problem?

When you focus on fixing the low performers, you merely shift attention away from the team’s performance.

Sure, individual team members need help at times. But the reality is that if the team was performing well and working well together, then it could easily afford to bring along some “freeloaders.”

The truth is that the problem-person, the low performer, the “deadwood,” is likely to be the victim of projection.

Scapegoating may make us feel better, but goats are rarely the real issue.

“Et Tu, Brute?”

You may be told that the low performers need to get “on board.” That’s an interesting judgment. Why do they think they’re “on board?”

Who is to say the people having you deal with the “deadwood” are not also in that category themselves?

Low Performers reflect the Team

In family therapy, the child who gets all of the negative attention is called the “identified patient.” And that “patient” carries the symptoms of what is really a family problem.

So, when you reframe the “deadwood” dilemma as other than an individual performance management issue you’re able to see that whatever issues are prevalent in the low performers indicate issues in the team as a whole entity. And addressing the dysfunctions in the team will serve to raise the bar for individuals within it.

[Adapted from Peter Block, ‘Twelve Questions to the Most Frequently Asked Answers,’ The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook and Companion: A Guide to Understanding Your Expertise, 2001, pp. 396-397]

The Inmates Run the Prison: Reframing “The Bad Boss” Problem

Posted on by Maya Mehta

Whether in the workplace, politics, or sports, the barrier to success is often defined as a “bad boss” behavior problem. In fact, the “Bad Boss” problem can manifest in almost any environment you find yourself in. But is this ubiquitous gripe the heart of the issue? Perhaps not.

What the “Boss” complaint reveals is that the most common consulting problems deal with the human system. No matter how technical the assignment, issues are often thought of as “presenting problems”…what seems obvious, the “low hanging fruit.”

Beware: this may be a trap.

When there are no good answers, the problem is likely with the question.

In other words, the root problem is often with the way the problem is defined or the way the question is framed. This is where the client gets stuck and where you might get stuck as well.

Once a better question is asked, it can reshape their entire understanding of the issue and open a path to an alternate future.

So how can this classic problem be reframed? Here are some thoughts on how to deal with the human system rather than just the presenting problem.

The Presenting Problem: The Boss is Bad

The team feels helpless and distressed and identifies the problem as a tyrannical boss. The boss is too controlling, plays favorites, doesn’t communicate enough, controls too much–you name it. This issue is known to surface at every level of an organization–even executives complain of being controlled by others.

If You Acted On This Definition

By focussing on the problem as described above, you might be inclined to find the boss a coach (or gently suggest they take advantage of employee assistance program benefit and speak to a therapist), submit them to the rigors of a 360-degree assessment, and pray that the boss changes their bad habits.

Reframing The “Bad Boss” Problem

As long as the presenting problem is narrowly framed around dealing with the boss, then the team unit essentially has no agency and is rendered useless in creating better working relationships.

But remember: the inmates run the prison. The deeper problem is that the members of the team do not support each other.

Human beings can’t change other human beings, but they can work together to co-create an environment where individual choices are respected and where the impact of their decisions on the team is taken into account.

If members of a team support each other in public, they can handle any boss.

Here’s what team support looks like: if one member confronts the boss in a meeting, the others have to affirm their support verbally–no staying silent or giving support after the conversation has ended. This reframes the problem by acknowledging the innate freedom of the team, and accepting the power to act is in their hands.

bad boss cannot succeed against a supportive team
Public Team Support

If the boss isn’t bossing well, then the team isn’t teaming well.

To act within a frame of ownership [powerful agency] the team has to:

  1. Overcome its sense of caution as employees. This is choosing to act within the freedom that the team possesses to frame a better social contract for the good of the unit as a whole, including the boss.
  2. Meet independently. You must decide what is required to get the work done. Consider these questions: What alternate future does the team desire to build? What commitments is the team willing to make to bring this into reality?
  3. Bring it up to the boss with the whole team present. This is essential to creating a supportive team structure. Be sure that everyone is at the table to avoid a perception that “not everyone is on board,” giving way for the possibility of blame to start all over again.

This may feel like mutiny and knowledge workers may hesitate at this idea. So help them get over it. The payoff is that creating a supportive team will go a long way to dealing with the underlying issues that perpetuate the “Bad Boss” scenario.

[Adapted from Peter Block, ‘Twelve Questions to the Most Frequently Asked Answers,’ The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook and Companion: A Guide to Understanding Your Expertise, 2001, pp. 393-394]