I recently got a new dog from a rescue, a 1 year old terrier mix with lots of energy. I have been spending lots of time taking walks while teaching leash manners, of course teaching the traditional sit and stay. I also got him to go to his bed on cue and to fetch. I have been using rewards to reinforce successful behaviors and withholding praise and rewards for behaviors I choose not to encourage. I was thinking, what behaviors do many managers reinforce in their employees? Are they the behaviors that encourage agility like transparency, openness, and collaboration? Or are they the behaviors that limit effectiveness like information hiding and heroism?
I have been in many organizations where the honest reporting of bad news is met with anger and condescension from management. This is like calling your dog and then smacking it on the nose for taking too long. Soon the dog won’t come at all. Well guess what? Soon employees will stop bringing bad news to management. Does that actually mean that everything is fine? Of course not. It just means that management will be left in the dark until it is too late to respond. Is that really what they want? Probably not. Why do they reinforce that behavior? They might be unaware of the consequences of their reactions to bad news, thinking they are encouraging employees to be proactive. Instead they are reinforcing that managers to not want to hear bad news.
For agility to thrive, an organization needs openness to quickly get information to the proper people for action or to encourage the messenger to work with the right people to solve the problem. The sooner bad news comes to light, the more time for contingency plans and mitigations strategies to work. Just like I need to be very intentional in what behaviors I want to reinforce with my dog, management needs to be intentional about the culture it wants to nurture. Is it going to be one of fear, where status “green shifts” as it makes its way up the chain? Or is it one of trust and openness where news, both good and bad, flow freely so informed decisions can be made in realtime using real information.
So managers, what behaviors are you rewarding?
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