The rewards of improving performance

Dear Bob …

Interesting article and approach on how to cure a complacent organization. I’ve been on the wrong end of an organization that was complacent. The place was run by engineers; highly intelligent people, but terrible business people. They also had difficulty dealing with people. The solution to every issue was work harder not smarter. If someone was under performing, the floggings continued until things improved. People had a habit of ducking and hiding whenever management approached. So it was complacency of a different kind.

I was hired as a manager, and tried to “stir the pot” and get everyone on a positive track. I tried to motivate with positive reinforcement instead of a stick. When my team began performing with steady improvement, I was immediately fired, without explanation. When I looked back at my performance measurements, all were on a positive note. My only theory, after speaking to some of my colleagues who were still employed there, was that I was perceived as a threat to my management. They were complacent and meant to stay that way.

– Potstirrer

Dear Potstirrer …

I think you put your finger on it. And I doubt anyone would have consciously said to themselves, “We’d better get rid of PS – he’s a threat to our complacent approach to things.” More likely, they all told each other that you were a bad fit, didn’t understand how things are supposed to be done, ignored the process, and so on.

But in the end it sure sounds like you were starting to demonstrate that the organization’s performance could reach a different level given a different kind of leadership. And that would have caused a lot of problems for a lot of people.

They’d have deserved the problems, of course, but so what?

– Bob

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