All Posts in Office Politics

|In: Business Ethics|Last Updated:

It’s time to vote. It’s a tough choice this year. No, I’m not going to endorse either George “Fratboy” Bush or Al “Cyborg” Gore. This being an IT publication, that wouldn’t be appropriate. Personally, I’m using my Aunt Lila’s logic. Years ago she explained why she was voting for Walter Mondale against Ronald Reagan. “I can’t stand the thought of voting for somebody stupider than me.”

At least we weren’t treated to a dueling dirt campaign. Much to my astonishment, the Gore campaign didn’t try to uncover the specifics of Bush’s youthful indiscretions, nor did the Bush campaign ever accuse Gore of getting high on WD-40 while lubricating his bearings.

Miracle of miracles, everyone seems to have respected both candidates’ privacy.

If only we could extend that respect to the rest of us.

For consumers, the privacy battleground is greasy corporate behavior vs. the BIG/GAS theory (“Business Is Great/Government and Academics are Stupid”). The heavily promoted and highly popular BIG/GAS theory says government regulation is always a bad thing and industry can regulate itself (despite more than a century of evidence to the contrary). Greasy corporate behavior includes stalking technology that surreptitiously follows you around the World Wide Web, privacy “policies” like Amazon.com’s, which, as Ed Foster recently reported, collects data now to be used according to whatever privacy policy Amazon.com happens to publish in the future … and use of the BIG/GAS theory itself to promote self-regulation as a solution, despite ample evidence of business shortsightedness, stupidity … and greasiness.

For employees, the privacy battleground is more nebulous, which may be the reason employees seem to be giving up. Awhile back the Society of Financial Service polled managers and employees on the subject. According to the survey, two-thirds of all companies monitor their employees in some fashion or other, and most employees don’t seem to mind: Only two out of five employees considered even video surveillance a breach of employer ethics.

Once the automated monitoring of e-mails and web usage becomes acceptable employer behavior, we accept the principle of automated surveillance for detecting violation of all company policies and procedures.

Consider the future. Computers will have built-in cameras; we’ll have software that surreptitiously watches employees at their desks. Telephones will include software that surreptitiously records all conversations in an office. And why not? It’s the company’s computer and telephone, not the employee’s.

The source of employer indifference regarding employee privacy rights is fuzzy, but as my upcoming book, Lewis’s Laws, points out, modern business theories dehumanize the workforce, so they’re a likely culprit. The process perspective, for example, treats employees as roles in processes, seeking to move intelligence from employees to the process. Similarly, the knowledge perspective treats companies as collections of knowledge and seeks to move intelligence from employees to knowledge management systems. With employees viewed as process role-holders and replaceable bags o’skills and knowledge, is it any wonder companies see no problem monitoring their behavior, “hoteling” them in shared workspaces, and otherwise failing to acknowledge their natural need for privacy?

Why employees aren’t outraged is a mystery. Regardless, don’t mistake employee docility for evidence that surveillance is a good idea.

The untheoretical reality is that companies succeed and fail more on the quality and motivation of their workforce than on any other factor. The employee anti-privacy policies now prevalent in the American workplace communicate a lack of trust that’s surely as de-motivating as any message an employer can send.

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|In: Leadership|Last Updated:

A couple of years ago I promoted “National Boycott Stupidity Day“, an event devoted to not watching Forrest Gump or anything else that actively promotes dumbness as a virtue.

The point of NBSD was to promote intelligence as the proper virtue, not to brand particular concepts, groups, or ideologies as stupid. “I disagree,” doesn’t mean “You’re a dope.”

Except for the following, relevant to topics covered recently in this column:

As yet more evidence of why policies are no substitute for judgment, I offer the latest example of policy untempered by judgment. According to the Associated Press, an 11-year-old girl received a two-week suspension from school because the 10-inch chain on her Tweety bird wallet, which connected it to her key rings, violated the school district’s zero-tolerance weapons policy.

Weapon? A trained assassin couldn’t strangle someone with a 10-inch wallet chain. I’ve seen this kind of merchandise. It’s far too shoddy to hold up to the strain, and besides, 10 inches is far too short to serve as a garrote. Maybe was she going peck someone’s eye out with Tweety’s beak.

Because of this inappropriately enforced policy, the girl suffers both humiliation and lost classroom time while nobody at all benefits. I figure, the only good that comes out of idiocy like this is that it promotes the most basic, bedrock American value — disrespect for authority.

So for rigid adherence to policy above and beyond the call of IQ, I hereby honor the culprits — the administrators of Garrett Middle School in suburban Atlanta — with our coveted Bureaucrat of the Year Award.

If you ever find yourself enforcing a policy because, “That’s our policy,” you’re a candidate yourself.

Meanwhile, on the cost-cutting front, here’s another fine example of failing to understand the connection between expense and income:

A correspondent’s wife used to work as a professional dietician for a healthcare services company. She and her colleagues were 100% billable at high margins, and demand exceeded supply.

As part of a larger cost-cutting exercise, her employer imposed a hiring freeze on dieticians, and laid off several besides. I’m quite sure the cost-cutters congratulated themselves on making “a hard decision” and I’m equally sure nobody ever figured out why financial performance failed to improve following these “tough cost-cutting measures”.

One more: A number of years ago, a company with which I’m familiar reduced the size of its customer service call center as part of a cost-reduction program. So as to not play favorites among its call center managers, it also shrank its order-entry call center. A year later, the CEO chartered a separate study to determine what the company could do to improve revenue growth. Guess where the study found an easy million bucks.

So to the administrators of Garrett Middle School, the cost-cutters who imposed a freeze on dietician positions, and the other cost-cutters who shrank an order-entry call center without first looking at call volume: If we ever do hold National Boycott Stupidity Day, don’t expect an invitation.

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