Violence, as last week’s column suggested, is the first refuge of the incompetent. Physical violence is, of course, frowned upon in business, but disciplinary actions of various kinds — close relatives of physical punishment — are all too commonly the first response of business leaders. The obvious, syllogistic conclusion is left as an exercise for the reader.
Disciplinary action is a tool corporations use in a variety of circumstances, from employee performance management to enforcement of policies and procedures, and it’s a necessary one. In the end, some things just can’t be optional. Disciplinary action should, however, be the option of last resort, not the first.
You’re in IT, which among other roles and responsibilities is a purveyor, or at least a collaborator in the purveyance of standards and policies. If they’re truly to be standards and policies you must be willing and able to enforce them.
Now that we’ve agreed on this point, can we also agree that every time IT has to enforce a standard, it’s a failure?
An instinct toward enforcement has three undesirable consequences. One at a time …
First: If your instinct is to enforce, you’ve made yourself responsible for something that should belong to others. If you start the conversation by saying “comply or else,” it means my sole reason for complying is the consequence of failing to do so. That makes it your standard, not mine, and I have no stake in it.
But what’s the point of an IT standard? It’s a choice among alternatives — a decision that of the many different ways of addressing some situation or other, we’ll use only the ones the standard allows.
A standard is, in other words, a decision about how a company will conduct its business, presumably to improve how it conducts its business. If that’s the goal, then IT’s responsibility should be limited to setting standards that have this potential. The responsibility for achieving the desired effect rests with those who make use of the standard. None of them will accept this responsibility if their sole reason for embracing it is the consequence of failing to do so.
That leads to the second consequence: That an enforcement instinct leads to poorly chosen standards. Here’s an easy way to demonstrate this point: Imagine you lack the authority to enforce the standards you set. What can you do instead?
Envision every standard you have to set as a decision delegated to you by those who will have to live with it once you’ve set it. They know the company needs a decision, and while they have the authority to make it, they’ve decided you have sufficient expertise that they’d like your recommendation.
Would thinking about standards this way change how you go about setting them?
It shouldn’t. Your goal is to set standards that make the business more effective. Who is the final authority on that subject? Those who operate the business. Until you’ve explained your proposed standard and they agree it will make the business more effective, all you have is an untested hypothesis.
You sell recommendations on their merits, where enforcement is a demonstration of authority. Which brings up the third reason enforcement should be your last resort rather than your first.
“Because I said so,” is a phrase used by parents when facts and logic prove ineffective at changing a young mind. Parents have to be willing to say this, because it’s their responsibility to add notions like responsibility and morality to creatures who arrive in their care with no ethical imperative beyond “It’s all about me!”
Businesses work best when employees act as adults, taking personal responsibility for the organization’s success. Every time a manager resorts to enforcement, he or she is saying, “Because I told you so,” to an employee, which defines their relationship as an adult interacting with a child.
So think long and hard before you use enforcement as the starting point of any conversation, let alone one about accepting standards you’ve decided to set. It’s a bad idea.
There should, after all, be more to leadership than assigning chores and withholding dessert if they don’t get done.