by Peter Hunter

     This article was originally published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

Have you ever noticed when you are in traffic and in a hurry to get somewhere, it is almost impossible not to creep up closer to the person in front of you?  It is as if by this act of creeping, it is possible to make the car in front move faster so that we can get where we want to go quicker.
 
But, have you ever thought what happens when someone starts to creep up too close behind your own car.  Do you accelerate away smartly leaving them to catch up or do you slow down?
 
The fact is, we are all human beings and the human reaction to being pushed in one direction is to resist and (frequently) push back in the opposite direction.  (Remember what happens when a teenager is told to clean their room?)
 
If someone is trying to make us hurry up by driving too close, we will almost invariably resist by slowing down.   Even with this realization, we frequently still drive too close to the person in front when we want them to go faster and as a result become even more frustrated when they slow down.
 
In short, our own behaviour is creating the conditions for our failure.
 
Fifty Years ago there was an American Business Guru called Douglas McGregor who was in the vanguard of a growing band of enlightened management savants.  They appreciated this aspect of our behaviour and realised that most of the problems involving the lack of morale and performance at work are directly related to the way managers behave towards their respective workforce.
 
To explain how this works, McGregor coined the two terms, “Theory X” and “Theory Y”.
 
Theory X is the model that describes the management behaviour that creates problems.  Theory Y is the model that, recognising the problems created by the Theory X manager, creates the environment for the workforce that allows them the space they need to work as well as they can.
 
Here is an example that will help explain these models, Theory X management assumes that the workforce is lazy and ignorant and would rather do anything except work.  The job of the Theory X manager therefore is to drive the workforce to do their work, to create an environment in which it is so difficult for the workforce to avoid work that they have no option but to work. This is seen as the traditional role of the manager by both the manager and the work force.

Theory Y on the other hand, assumes that the workforce is skilled and experienced, is willing to share that experience and take pride in what they do.  The job of the Theory Y manager is therefore no longer to tell the workforce what he thinks they ought to be doing. Instead, it’s to create a positive work environment that will support the workforce, allow it to take pride in their efforts and thereby improve productivity.
 
The difference between the two models is the treatment of the workforce and the environment in which they work – both of which affects the motivation to do their jobs.
 
The problems occur when a creative and motivated workforce, is treated as if they are lazy and ignorant by a Theory X type of manager.  This is the predominant management behaviour, learned from our peers or from schools; how managers need to do to drive better workforce performance.
 
What Douglas McGregor shows us is that “Driving” performance is actually the management behaviour that causes poor performance and bad attitude.  This Theory Y lesson is: if you want to get there quicker, if you want to increase the performance of your own organisation, stop pushing the people who actually control your organisations ability to perform, the workforce and instead help support their efforts.  The results may be dramatic.
 
If you want to go faster, Slow down!
 
Try the Theory Y approach next time you are stuck in traffic.
 
The more space you give to the people in front the quicker they will go. When we slow down we give the driver of the car front more space. He will stop feeling as if he is being pushed and will therefore speed up.  By allowing the driver in front to feel that he is not being pushed we will get where we want to go quicker.
 
At work it is the same.  The less direction and control the manager imposes on the workforce, the better they will perform.
 
Give people the space they need to do their jobs.  You will be amazed at what happens.
 
Peter A Hunter
Author of Breaking the Mould.
www.BreakingTheMould.Co.UK
www.Hunter-Consultants.Co.UK

by Peter Hunter

     This article was originally published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

If we want to get a teenager to clean their room our first instinct is to tell them to do it.
They are children, we are adults. It is our function to prepare them for life and part of that preparation includes telling them what to do, because we know best.

Yet how often when teenagers are told to clean their rooms do they actually do it?

Unless there is a very heavy threat attached to the order the chance of any teenager actually cleaning their room is practically zero.  We know this because we ourselves never used to clean our rooms and, based on the evidence of our own eyes, neither do our offspring.

So why, when we are faced with overwhelming data demonstrating the utter futility of telling our teenagers to clean their rooms, do we still persist in creating pointless conflict by telling them to do things that we know they never will.

At least we are right about one thing.

Telling teenagers what to do does prepare them for life because when they find a job they will discover that their managers will spend most of their time creating pointless conflict by telling them what to do.

Their managers, whether the object of their own teenagers antipathy or not, are unlikely to have understood that what makes a teenager resist being told what to do also holds true for the rest of the population.

Their managers will continue telling the workforce what to do believing that it is only as a result of this constant instruction that anything is done at all, not realising for a minute that by telling their workforce what to do the manager causes them to react in exactly the same way that the teenagers do when told to clean their rooms.

Telling people what to do actually destroys their ability to do it.

People enjoy challenges; we enjoy achieving our goals and being proud of what we have done.

What we hate is being told what to do.

So when we are told what to do we resist, not because we object to what we have been told to do, the resistance occurs because we object to being “told” what to do.

If management set a target for the workforce, it appears to the workforce as an arbitrary statement, not based in reality, telling them what management think that they should be doing.

Management is essentially telling the workforce what they should be doing and the workforce react against their desire for control by seldom, if ever, achieving the management set target.

The workforce are accustomed to management setting unachievable targets and management are accustomed to the workforce failing to achieve their targets, never once doubting that the failure is the fault of the workforce and never suspecting for a minute that it is the fault of management for setting the target in the first place.

By setting the target management almost guarantee its non achievement.

Catch 22
By setting targets, by telling people what to do, we are actually creating the conditions that prevent them from achieving the very thing that we have instructed them to do.

How then can we get people to do what we want if we cannot tell them what to do?

Consider the teenager, they do not want to live in unsanitary squalor,  but they are forced to do it by being continually being told to clean their rooms.

In the same way the workforce do not want to be perceived as unmotivated failures but this is what they are forced to be in reaction to the attempts of management to exert control.

The problem is “telling” people what to do.

If instead of telling other people what to do, we listen to what they want, we can then help them to achieve something.

The “something” that is achieved may not be exactly what we wanted but it will be an achievement that everybody can take pride in.

It will be orders of magnitude better than the destructive resistance that is created every time we try to get our own way by telling other people what we think they should be doing.

If you have ever experienced or learnt something which you then knew was instinctively right - you will never have forgotten it. Peter Hunter learned something years ago which, regrettably, most of us have still yet to learn. When we do - once we have understood the simplicity of ‘Breaking the Mould’ - it will transform our lives forever! Vic Baxter – Business Workout. Peter Hunter: Author-Breaking the Mould.www.BreakingTheMould.Co.UK