“Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.”
W. Edwards Deming
I’ve long been a fan of Deming. Back in the day, when working as an HR Director for a large health care organization, I spent several years being fully immersed in his teachings and theories when we adopted his System of Profound Knowledge (SoPK) as the framework for transforming our multi-state organization. I admit that I still periodically grab Out of the Crisis or The New Economics off my bookshelf for reference.
Among other things Deming was known for developing his “14 Points for the Transformation of Management”; some are operational while others are more philosophical in nature.
Point #8, just one of the nuggets of wisdom, is “drive out fear.” Pretty basic. Simple even. Yet Out of the Crisis (with the 14 points) was published in 1986 and we still suck at eliminating fear in the workplace.
This has been on my mind, yet again. as I’ve recently heard stories or had conversations with people regarding the pervasiveness of fear in their companies; in some scenarios the work environment is filled with outright terror.
And, in every single scenario, leaders – from line supervisors to CEOs – are the ones creating these hellscapes when:
- Managers (or HR Departments!) issue rules or policies, often nonsensical, with no explanation of the purpose or reason
- Employees are chastised, disciplined, and punished (not course-corrected or given constructive feedback) for simplest missteps
- There’s a lack of understanding (leading to people ultimately not giving a damn) as employees are reluctant to ask clarifying questions because others have been told “you don’t need to know that”
- Leaders blow the proverbial gasket (froth at the mouth? lose their minds? act like fools?). One person told me about a senior leader who berated a team member in their department meeting. This “leader” slammed his hand on the table as he punctuated his escalating tirade with curse words and then swept from the room leaving the entire team sitting in stunned silence. Not the first time and, allegedly, the standard M.O. for this leader.
Out There in the Real World
One woman told me she gets physically ill every morning at the thought of walking through the doors into her office building and she’s not alone; every single day her co-workers speculate who will be the next ‘target.’ Another said she works for a company where “everything is swept under the rug” and no one dares to bring up problems for fear of making the boss look bad. “We just keep our heads down and try not to draw attention to what we’re doing” she told me.
A guy who is a senior leader at his organization told me “What we (as a company) say we’ll do is never what we actually do. I’m reluctant to bring it up though because our CEO takes it personally whenever someone mentions something negative about our operating model.”
Not surprisingly several of the organizations these people work for list similar corporate values on their websites informing customers and job seekers alike that they (to paraphrase) ‘believe employees are the most important asset’ and ‘embrace open communication’ while ‘fostering a caring work environment.’
That’s the same pablum we’ve seen many times before, isn’t it? The same corporate communication and C-Suite doubletalk that has no connection to the organizational reality. Rather, these are workplaces where fear has been institutionalized. Employees have been beaten into submission to the point where they’re just going through the motions and trying to stay out of the line of fire to keep their jobs.
Sadly though, somewhere in the bowels of these corporate domiciles, there are oblivious leaders ignoring the panic running rampant in their organization whilst instead getting excited about the quarterly pizza-for-lunch day. To which the woman who literally vomits when she thinks of walking through their office door each morning says “$#*& @!^”
And she is scared. More than just a little.
