Control through wine

Many years ago I was put in charge of fire safety in one office of an IT company. It looked like this: "Sign here and here, everything, hang your name on the dashboard, nothing else is needed." The problem was that I found what such a painting really means. And he began to "build" everyone in the office to comply with safety rules. If you have not tried it, I inform you - it is often very difficult to do under normal conditions. What is the problem? The fact that most people consider this rule conditional. All break, and we will.

Now imagine that you are introducing a rule that cannot be followed. Or which will not be followed, because they are accustomed to do otherwise. And do not provide tight control over each case. Well, sort of like a forum where you can’t use the rules, but the moderator doesn’t care. For examples, a little more far to go is not necessary, but we will not talk about it today. Submitted?
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Do you know what we have just done inside the company or department as a result? We have created a situation in which each person is to blame separately, but no one in general . And this is a very important and cruel control tool.

Why do they do that?

For example, if you, as a manager, suddenly want to fire someone, you always have a suitable official reason: you have not systematically fulfilled the requirement of your boss. In this case, even after the dismissal of such a character, no one in the team will fulfill the rule. There is the principle of social proof: “Nobody does, and I will not do. Why stand out? Accordingly, the status quo will be preserved: each person in your group is so guilty that they can be instantly dismissed, but at the same time everyone is doing everything right.

What does it mean? That you transferred control from the scope of documented processes to the scope of personal agreements with each. You have simplified the chain of official interaction, in fact, making yourself a tyrant in one single command. Now imagine that you are wrong somewhere. Your colleagues will be afraid to point this out - after all, an instant response will be the discovery of their guilt (which is the default). That is, everyone goes guilty and hopes that you will not fall into disfavor.

What happens in the team at this time? To begin with - there is a social force that keeps new people from changing. Protective reaction of the system, roughly speaking. As in my example with fire safety - I can hardly change the work of 20 people alone without the direct support of the director of the company, but in theory, in the ideal model, I should have done just that.

The level of fear is growing. If you are always to blame, then you will react passively to new unfair demands. You are to blame. From here - decrease in feedback that, by and large, in the changing market is already deadly.

Further, the concept of the expediency of following other rules and documents falls apart. Once one can be broken, it means the rest too. It directly hits first in discipline, and then in performance. The countermeasure appears very quickly - the leader-tyrant must clearly and rigidly designate orders. This leads to further loosening of the processes - only the mechanics of “executed-made” remain, which only works in small groups (but for them tyranny is effective).

So we have three wrong stages:

1. Established work, when all act according to the documents and rules. It is expensive in terms of energy costs to comply with everything that is not necessarily vital now.
2. A jamb, when someone is guilty alone, but at the same time he does not receive social confirmation of his rightness.
3. And a mess when everyone is guilty.

In this situation, we come to a mess. Bardak - the most difficult condition. When everyone is guilty, you can’t take and fire everyone at once, and then find new people.

How to solve?

Disassemble mess is very unpleasant and difficult. This is one of the management tasks that I once did. I can not say what is good, but I did. So, imagine that you are faced with a similar choice, and you have several options:

• Type a new team. Everything is simple: you allocate up to 10% of sensible people from your current team and transfer them to a new one, then gradually ensure the transfer of functions. This is a great plan if you have unlimited resources. In reality, they are not.
• Slowly pull the system to order through the introduction of new rules and constant monitoring (I did just that). A normal plan that will meet with serious resistance: roughly speaking, the most lazy employees will undermine discipline and create friction. Situations like "yes well, just do not exactly follow the rules, we are all people." In this case, the military go over to the barracks position and resolutely “build”.
• Take advantage of the factor of social proof and use the power of control through guilt against the very system of such control. This is a very elegant method. To do this, you need to take everyone out of guilt in one operation, having guaranteed to them that past sins will not be counted. But at the same time, one cannot simply declare an amnesty - after all, without a concrete negative example, there will be no motivation again not to do as before. The mechanics are very cynical, but effective. It is necessary to find one guilty and explain that it is he who is to blame for the situation. No matter what his contribution to the state of affairs in fact. And punish. This is an example of wartime, when a detachment is supposed to be shot for retreating a detachment, but you cannot deprive the fighters. The commander finds one "traitor" - and denotes his guilt. If this is not done, the detachment will retreat again, because the necessary suggestion was not there.

Where does this state come from? A mess can appear either as a result of the actions of a weak leader who is not listened to by his own people, or as a result of purposeful imposition of a control strategy through guilt.