Game of effectiveness
Managers fall into self-deception. Arrogantly deciding that employees need gamification, evaluation and development. Collectives are sick of the newfangled words. Mornings starts with a prayer service to ensure that the managing heads do not have original ideas. The subordinates stopped telling to the relatives about what they do at work.
Evolutionary-teal thoughts turned organizations into sects. Brutal grizzlies pull a face of empathy. Office panthers nurse younglings. Condors stylize amoebas. Universal equality, total prosperity, piercing subtlety. The infection seeped through the Window of Overton. The process has become important.
Yesterday's “those” are called “human capital” and “talents”. Conveniently! They began to speak more respectfully demanding more, but keeping the same salaries. An itchy model of slavery for laborer. Does not conflict with religions and diets, supports tolerance and forbearance. We pray to the color!
It is funny to hear that the trend is new. I will explain it for trustful. 18 centuries ago, at the court of the Wei dynasty, the most famous state of the Chinese Three Kingdoms, was an “imperial appraiser”, who determined the effectiveness of officials. Read the original sources and buy a cap with three visors.
Is not that enough? Let us continue then. For 500 years, the Jesuits have been ranking the favor of the members of the Order – since the time of Ignatius de Loyola – the prototype of Don Quixote in the novel of Cervantes. References to Frederick Taylor, an apologist for the scientific organization of labor, are authoritative for Americans who believe that civilization has just begun with them.
The military attestation was launched a century ago, then it switched to the industry. The middle of the last century was marked by an avalanche of program-target management, a method of critical events, rating scales of behavioral attitudes. The orientation to the result blossomed 50 years ago, together with feedback.
Approaches were justified by flat hierarchies – there were not enough bosses for numerous subordinates. There was no e-mail, digital bulletin boards, invariably present gadgets. Orientation to development was required to raise the industries, filled with post-front illiterate ones.
It is not bad to know organization's goals, but why to make zombies from the grassroots staff, barely mathcing the budgets of households. The formalized control of intermediate results is not applicable for thinking ones and abstract for those who work with hands. Why you need to increase the efficiency of the janitor and involve the guard.
The orientation towards reward and development forces us to look for loopholes of givers and takers, because claims always exceed opportunities. Cultivating loyalty encourages denunciations and slander, generates sycophancy and rappelling, fertilizes petty inventions and disgusting thoughts. Do you strive for this?
The road to corporate hell is paved with good intentions of worthy quality, business development, profitability growth and shareholder value. It is officially believed that we identify poor performance and provide opportunities to better use of abilities. However, you will never be jumped over by the estimated ones!
Another song is the masking of the scale. We assign markers: “below expectations”, “satisfactory”, “good”, “excellent”, “outstanding achievements”. As if surrounded by idiots who do not understand the analogy with the five-point school marks. Would you be deceived?
On the one hand, we require creativity, on the other hand, we give the task to execute the instructions. The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. Whom to obey: the linear manager or wise people from HR? The subordinate says: “I want to buy a car, the fifth child was born”. We answer: “Work harder, it will help”.
A young trainee dreams of a suit, and we discuss with him “qualitative changes”. The driver is taught not only where to go, but also HOW. Not knowing the traffic situation, mood and how much the poor guy was sleeping. Maybe it takes him an hour and a half to get to work in hope to break out into people. And he perceives passengers as “internal customers”.
I happened to participate in the farce of attestation of the pretender to the post, when other candidates were eliminated by formal criteria. The lady would not have gone too, but she was listed as the mistress of the upper floor. Many people knew the situation. Although it was stated that “the system operates without exceptions”.
You know, there is a limit to criticism that a person is capable to sustain. So, the more representative, the weaker is the person. The bosses are intolerant of the feedback they promote. However, they discuss others seriously and thoughtfully, but do not consider themselves part of the bureaucratic ritual.
The emphasis on teamwork is beneficial to those who fall back, the leaders are demotivated from day-to-day pulling of weaklings on their own necks. The scoring strengthens power relations and fixes the subordinates' dependence. The bosses play in the kitchen psychologists, traumatizing the laborers standing “behind the counter” in the cold and heat.
Thesis of equal opportunities is the myth of emotionless “cosmonauts”, who are confident that slaves live in the office basement. Threats and swear words are indistinguishable from a whip and police batons. You will not feed a family with praise living outside the Moscow Ring Road. Mentoring, coaching and support are forms of sophisticated bullying.
The more we train the staff the less expected are the results. The remunerated ones go on higher position to competitors, the usual one occupy the middle layer, those who fall back go home. There is nothing more terrible, hopeless and tragic than watching the water being carried in the sieve. However, such fun is so delightful.
Inertia is the result of the slowpokes’ ambitions. Achievement is a corpse that has left a tendency after itself. This is madness – doing the same thing, waiting for the improvement of the result. Sometimes leadership is a light of sanity that stops generation of nonsense. It is important not to be busy, but to create value, because nothing feigned can last forever.
Author: Oleg Braginsky
Source: New Retail
Translation: Daniil Shmitt