🚀 go-pugleaf

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bushe@sfu.ca wrote:

: People bring themselves to their jobs.  If they have a basic view of the
: world as a scary place out of their control they're going to see that at work
: too.  Those who see the world as a basically safe place and see themselves as
: in control of their own lives, not surprisingly, find the "boss" easy to
: approach.

This has been my experience as a first level manager, which is one of the
reasons I got out of management.  I had to work with several people who
were basically fearful.  They had a sort of victim mentality, for
whatever reason.  I tried everything in the management book to increase
their confidence but one of the problems was that I really didn't have
empathy for them.

: When I was involved in QWL and STS redesign work at General Motors early in
: my career, it was easy to see management as the "bad guys" and to feel that
: it was their responsibilty to "drive out fear".  I was not prepared to see
: how much those who, in my mind, were oppressed by the hierarchy, were
: dependent on that hierarchy to contain their "natural" fear - that is, their
: basic sense that the world is not a safe place and strong and wise leaders
: are required to keep the world safe.  Those who are most
: fearful are also those who most need to believe that someone up there knows
: what is going on and will take care of them, whether it is big business, big
: unions, or in the case of Canada, big government.

: Try to remove the illusion that someone is in control and knows what is
: going on and some people will call you a revolutionary and want to lynch you.

Thank you for contributing this insight!  I never noticed this dynamic
until you mentioned it, but it rings true.  This means that driving out
fear is in some sense about building character in each individual.

Tall order!

: When we don't have
: rules anymore to regulate our interactions and decision-making, we just
: have you and me in an ambiguous, anxiety filled dance of who is going to
: influence who.  Here, more so than in highly structured situations, the
: impact of a person's own attitudes and proclivities are most apparent.

This is a brilliant observation.  Have you written any books or papers?  I'd
like to read them.

In any healthy team you will find two elements: a shared goal, and
distinct roles.  When each team member understands his role and his
relationship to his coworkers, he can point himself at the shared goal and
work with confidence.

The hierarchy automatically suggests roles and relationships.  Eliminate
it and the job of role definition becomes more challenging.

: If you kow where courage comes from or how to cultivate it please, please
: let me know.

Courage is cultivated by rewarding risk taking behavior.  When I worked at
Apple Computer, my boss used to say that he didn't mind me making mistakes
as long as I learned from them.  I tested him on this over and over again,
and he was true to his word.  This did wonders for my courage, but others
who worked for him did not necessarily take him up on it or grow in the
same way.  Who knows why this is?  Maybe it's like growing anything:  you
start with a seed, but you can't *create* the seed, you have to discover it.

Another way to cultivate courage is to educate the timid.  When I know
how the system works, I'm more apt to use it fearlessly.

Courage is certainly a mystery.  There is a group of secretaries at
Borland that spontaneously formed an Admin's Forum where they get
together on a regular basis and discuss how better to do their jobs.
This forum has grown over the past year to the point where they are
calling speakers in from other parts of the company and making
recommendations to management.

I'm planning to write up their experience for publication, because it
shows how anyone can become self-empowered in an environment that is at
least not *actively hostile* to them.  This is courage in progress, but
don't ask me where their courage comes from.  I assume it comes from
their own personalities.

: Gervase Bushe Ph.D.
: Faculty of Business Administration
: Simon Fraser University
: Burnaby, BC, Canada,  V5A 1S6

: email: bushe@sfu.ca
: phone: (604) 291-4104

Thanks Gervase!

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James Bach                        | Section Chairman, Monterey Bay ASQC  |
Senior Staff Engineer             | Chapter Chairman,                    |
Languages Quality Assurance       |   Silicon Valley Software Quality    |
Borland International             |   Association, Santa Cruz Chapter    |
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