It has been a tough year all round. The conversations in coffee shops are still about redundancies, increasing work loads, sagging inspiration and worry about "what ifs". The frazzled marketing manager of one professional services firm explained that while their marketing team had been cut by 30%, the service expectations of the partners remained the same. Nobody dared to complain because they feared for their job security! A vicious circle and, with no real leadership being exhibited to prevent burn-out and dwindling performance, one that is sure to have an unhappy ending.
So just how do you be a good boss in a bad economy? Even if your organisation is weathering the downturn, there will be some repercussions. Perhaps salaries have been cut or frozen, bonuses put in hibernation, budgets pared and projects put on the back burner. Most managers are operating in difficult and sometimes unfamiliar territory. Equipped with skills and approaches refined by long years of business growth, they now find their roles defined by an unexpected question. How should people be managed when fear is in the air, confidence is slipping, and it looks as if the road ahead will remain rough for many miles?
The following excerpt from a Harvard Business Review (June 2009) article by Robert Sutton clarifies why it is so hard to be a good boss in theses circumstances and what the best bosses do during tough times.
The Toxic Tandem
It is never easy to be a great boss, even in good economic times. It is challenging in part because of an unfortunate dynamic that naturally arises in relationships of unequal power.
Research has confirmed what many of us have long suspected. People who gain authority over others tend to become more self-centred and less mindful of what others need, do and say. The problem is compounded by the fact that a boss’s self-absorbed words and deeds are scrutinised closely by his or her followers.
To appreciate the first half of the dynamic (that bosses tend to be oblivious to their followers’ perspectives) consider the “cookie experiment” reported by Keltner, Gruenfeld and Anderson in 2003.
In this study, teams of three students each were instructed to produce a short policy paper. Two members of each team were randomly assigned to write the paper. The third member evaluated it and determined how much the other two would be paid, in effect making them subordinates. About 30 minutes into the meeting, the experimenter brought in a plate of five biscuits – a welcome break that was in fact the focus of the experiment. No one was expected to reach for the last biscuit, and no one did. Basic manners dictate such restraint. But what about the fourth biscuit? The extra one that could be taken without negotiation or an awkward moment?
It turns out that a little taste of power has a substantial effect. The “bosses” not only tended to take the fourth biscuit but also displayed signs of “dis-inhibited” eating, chewing with their mouths open and scattering crumbs widely.
This experiment illustrates a finding consistent across many studies. When people, independent of personality, wield power they become
- more focused on their own needs and wants
- less focused on others’ needs, wants and actions and
- act as if the written and unwritten rules that others are expected to follow don’t apply to them.
In addition, many bosses also suffer a related form of power poisoning. They believe that they are aware of every important development in the organisation, even when they are remarkably ignorant of key facts. This affliction is called the “fallacy of centrality” – the assumption that because one holds a central position, one automatically knows everything necessary to exercise effective leadership.
When considering the other half of the dynamic (followers devote immense energy to watching, interpreting and worrying about even the smallest and most innocent moves their superior makes) studies of baboon troops show that the typical member glances at the alpha male every 20 or 30 seconds to see what they are doing.
This tendency (without the frequency) is well documented in human groups also.
As the psychologist Susan Fiske puts it “Attention is directed up the hierarchy. Secretaries know more about their bosses than vice versa. People pay attention to those who control their outcomes. In an effort to predict and possibly influence what is going to happen to them, people gather information about those in power.”
Furthermore people tend to interpret what they see the boss do in a negative light. When the “top dog” makes an ambiguous move (one that isn’t clearly good or bad for followers), followers are most likely to construe it as a sign that something bad is going to happen to them.
Related studies show that when people down the pecking order feel threatened by their superiors, they become distracted from their work. They re-direct their efforts to trying to figure out what is going on and to coping with their fear and anxiety. As a result, performance suffers.
In a crisis, both sides of this dynamic are amplified. So it is not your imagination; it is harder to be a good boss in a bad economy. Your own stress presses you to shut down emotionally, to focus attention on what your superiors are up to, to turn inward and wrestle with your own fears. Everyone involved is only human with the usual foibles, quirks and blind spots.
Making the best of a bad situation
Whether you oversee just a few direct reports or are the CEO of a big company, these are times that you need to re-think your responsibilities as “the boss”. Specifically you need to address deficits in four areas
- Predictability
- Understanding
- Control
- Compassion
Providing predictability
Martin Seligman’s famous research on the signal/safety hypothesis highlights the importance of predictability in people’s lives.
Selgiman cites the function of air-raid sirens during the bombing of London in World War II. They were so reliable that people felt free to go about their business when the sirens were silent. When a stressful event can be predicted, a person knows that he or she need not maintain a state of vigilance or anxiety.
The same holds true for organisational shocks such as redundancies. If you give people as much information as possible about what will happen (to them as individuals, to their work groups and to the organisation as a whole) and when it will happen, they will prepare to the extent they can and suffer less.
Increasing understanding
If predictability is about what will happen and when, understanding is about why and how. The chief advice here is to accompany any major changes with an explanation of what makes it necessary and what effect it will have, in as much detail as possible.
This advice is rooted in psychological research. Human beings consistently react negatively to unexplained events. The effect is so strong that it is better to give an explanation that is disliked than no explanation at all, provided the explanation is credible.
More than a single communication is needed to bring a large group to a point of real understanding. When operations are going haywire and people are rattled, messages must be designed to get through to people who are distracted, upset and apt to think negatively given any ambiguity.
When it comes to internal communications, the mantra is “simple, concrete and repetitive”.
You may have spent an hour carefully crafting an email and many hours making sure that all your direct reports know what is happening and what they can do – but even so, any one of them may have just glanced at the email and became so agitated when you spoke that the message simply didn’t stick. If you aren’t saying the same things over and over again, and aren’t a bit bored with yourself, it may be that you aren’t repeating yourself enough or your messages are overly complex.
Affording control
People don’t embark on careers to feel powerless. The whole point of work is to achieve outcomes and have impact. That is why people are so deeply frustrated when events seem to render them helpless.
As a boss in a bad economy, you may not be able to give people much control over what happens, but it is important that they have as much say as possible in how and when it happens.
Organisational theorist, Karl Weick, has shown that when an obstacle is framed as too big, too complex or too difficult, people are overwhelmed and freeze in their tracks. Yet when the same challenge is broken down into less daunting components, people proceed with confidence to overcome it.
The message from this is to break down challenges into “small win” opportunities so that, as a good boss, you can keep up a drumbeat of accomplishments, no matter how minor.
Showing compassion
Compassion can and does take many forms. At its heart it is as simple as adopting the other person’s point of view, understanding his anxiety and making a sincere effort to soothe it.
A valuable lesson to remember on empathy is that a boss delivering bad news to a subordinate is, by definition, at a later point in the emotional cycle of reacting to it. By the time they talk, the boss has already worked through the shock, anger and embarrassment, gone through all the scenarios in his head, made decisions and come to terms with them. The subordinate on the other hand is hearing the news for the first time. Not only will that person be unready to engage with the considerations the boss is outlining but he may be appalled at how dispassionately they are presented.
Compassion is most important when it helps people retain their dignity. When redundancies and closings are unavoidable, tending to the emotional needs of people who are let go is essential both for them and for those who survive the cuts.
The bottom line
Bosses who increase predictability, understanding, control and compassion for their people will allow employees to accomplish the most in a time of anxiety – and will earn their deep loyalty.
Tough times do provoke tunnel vision and desperation. However, win or lose, if your people believe that you are always on their side, it will come back to help you. But if they believe you are willing to sell them out at the drop of a hat, it can haunt you down the road.”
(How to Be a Good Boss in a Bad Economy Robert Sutton, Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University.)
