Chapter 8

Straight Talk About Positive Management

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the limitations of and potential misunderstandings about positive management (PM).

Positive Management Weaknesses and Caveats

Like any idea that depends on psychology, PM is not and cannot be a cure-all or magic bullet. I do not, for example, recommend implementation if your organization is already in crisis. It is unlikely that it will have any meaningful effect on a crisis situation in the short term, and it could significantly confuse matters at a difficult time. Even if you apply PM techniques in an otherwise stable organization, you should not expect immediate results. I learned this lesson the hard way. In cases where I have implemented PM, I have expected results much more quickly than they have occurred. It took me a while to realize that, when properly applied, PM can be fairly subtle. It is not an obvious or jarring change to an organization’s processes, and it is unreasonable to expect that people will immediately notice the application of PM techniques. It is also unreasonable to expect that people will immediately react even when they do perceive a change. If one of the negative bosses that I have worked for over the years would suddenly have become more positive, it would have taken me some time to accept that it was indicative of meaningful change. It would have been more likely for me to have written off early stages of positive approaches as a rare good mood or, worse, as a gambit being tried by the boss for some ulterior motive.

Sincerity

Though I’ve never tried using PM in an insincere way (and have not seen it tried by others), I am sure that it would not work. PM is not an “act.” If it is to be used, managers must embrace the idea that reducing excessive focus on the negative and treating people with respect works because it creates a higher quality relationship in the workplace, and they must believe that the improved relationship will lead to better performance and outcomes for the organization.

Quick and Easy Ways to Ruin Positive Management Implementation

There are several ways that a manager can undermine PM implementation:

• A fit of temper can sabotage PM implementation. Shouting, threatening, and insulting are all ruled out in a positive workplace. Other calmer and more professional techniques must take their place. The easiest way to destroy the effectiveness of PM is to “lose it”—to lapse into non-PM behaviors. Just one of these incidents will leave permanent doubt in the minds of colleagues and subordinates that PM is real, and it could have the double-whammy effect of convincing subordinates, colleagues, bosses, and even customers that it’s simply an act or manipulation. If an outburst of temper were to happen in a highly visible way, the subsequent likelihood of PM working, especially in the near term, would be very low. This is yet another reason to fully buy in before beginning implementation.
• Implementation of PM can be ruined not only through one big display of negativity but also by many small mistakes, such as belittling sarcasm and persistently reminding people of their weaknesses or recent failures. Those behaviors must be strictly limited. I want to be clear: This does not imply that people have fewer weaknesses or make fewer mistakes than before PM was implemented. It does not imply that PM requires managers to ignore these faults. Its purpose and effect is to change the method for dealing with them. If a subordinate’s performance warrants correction or intervention in a PM framework, it cannot be accomplished by shaming him or her. Shame may, in fact, play a significant role in changing future performance, but it can’t be applied by the manager—it must arise within the employee. If the manager blames and shames, even in private, it undermines the fundamental environment that he or she is trying to create. It is necessary, therefore, to use professional approaches such as a dispassionate discussion of the facts and specific steps needed to improve. This is time consuming and sometimes a bit interpersonally difficult. It is true that shouting and bullying are sometimes easier for managers, not to mention that these actions might make them feel better. Managing organizations is not equivalent to coaching football, and exceptionally successful coaches such as Tony Dungy have shown that such behaviors are not necessary even there.

The time and patience required should be treated as costs of implementing a positive workplace. We can put a twist on the old saw about spending money to make money: “Sometimes you have to spend energy to make energy.” Aside from whatever social and psychological benefits may accrue from the use of positive techniques, management’s principal interest in implementing PM is to increase the performance of the organization. Just as we frequently see in customer relationships, design processes, investment strategies, and other activities that provide a long-term return on an investment, shortcuts are frequently ineffective. Actions that belittle people, however obvious or subtle, are shortcuts.

Positive Does Not Equal Easy

It is flawed logic to think that we can afford to be positive only when what we’re doing is easy. Its illogical companion—that negativity would be required if the situation were more difficult or if there were more resistance—is also dangerous. Difficult situations or controversial topics do not require negative approaches. Some management techniques suggest that less democratic and participative approaches should be used when physical danger is present, such as in military and police organizations, but those approaches should not be confused with negativity.

Positive approaches can deal with organizational problems just as effectively as negative ones, and they can have a large additional benefit based on the economic concept of a multiperiod game. In such a game, participants “play again” in subsequent periods and bring with them information collected in this period. Urgent circumstances may incline a manager to go negative, but to do so ignores the fact not only that such behavior will be remembered but also that participants will adjust their behavior to anticipate possible repetition in future periods. If one could be certain that control of the situation would be sustained in future periods, the damage caused by multiperiod memory effects would be reduced, but the complexity of modern work environments makes that practically impossible. Positive approaches make future retaliation unlikely and preserve goodwill in supervisor-subordinate relationships.

Positive Management and Ethics

Recent dramatic incidents of unethical conduct in business, government, and the military—especially those that triggered a severe recession—have raised awareness of the importance of ethics in organizations and the extent of ethical problems in our society. Those events have been especially powerful in showing that the costs of dishonesty are frequently borne by people who were not involved in the unethical conduct.

How does PM relate to ethical behavior in organizations? A recurring theme in this book is that negativity creates and sustains fear. That fear can be mild, such as not wanting to “tick off the boss,” and it can be severe, such as fearing for one’s job and reputation. Fear is the direct cause of some kinds of unethical behavior and enables cover-up of dishonesty, even by those not directly involved. Fear causes people to become self-protective. Concern about negative consequences supplants good judgment and, in some cases, limits the ability to distinguish right from wrong.

It is useful to think of managers as largely falling into two groups with regard to ethics. The first group could be called “compliers”—managers who are trying to do the minimum necessary to stay within ethical or legal expectations. The name is meant to imply that cooperation is required and comes from a sense of duty or obligation.

The other major group could be called “embracers”—managers who are proactive about ethics and typically believe that organizations should strive to be or do good. For these managers, compliance is viewed as a given and a minimum. They seek higher moral and ethical ground through the actions of their organizations and employees.

In the same way that people run from physical danger, they may also “run” from job and career insecurities and will do what they believe is necessary to keep from losing their jobs. Examples include the following:

• Not reporting unethical behaviors of others if they believe that they will be blamed, that their credibility will be questioned, or that they will be the target of revenge for speaking up
• Manipulating sales or other performance numbers or lying about negative results if they believe that unfavorable personal outcomes will result from telling the truth
• Blaming others in an attempt to direct attention away from their own culpability

Employees may associate managers’ excessive sarcasm, bitterness, or negativity with disrespect or distrust of the organization and assume it is a signal of tolerance of unethical behavior. On the other hand, a generally positive environment that upholds the dignity and worth of employees will increase the self-imposed shame of being caught in unethical activities and can be a deterrent to dishonest behavior.

Won’t People Get Tired of Being Praised?

No.

As established in chapter 6, people vary in their need for achievement. Some don’t need as much feedback and are not as motivated by praise and recognition as others. The fact remains, however, that very few employees dislike praise. If it does not appeal to them emotionally, it may do so rationally by providing opportunities for job security or advancement.

Another concern that managers might have is the “familiarity breeds contempt” problem, which can take two forms:

• Worry that praise will lose its effect as it becomes a routine fixture in the workplace
• Fear that a “floor” will be placed on the expected amount of praise by employees and that subsequent, less frequent use of praise will result in dissatisfaction or even demotivation

We just don’t have evidence that these problems will occur. Managers should be vigilant about uneven levels of praise in implementing a positive framework. Too much variation is likely to be confusing to subordinates, and it is hard to predict the effect, good or bad, of oscillating levels of praise. To sum up, we don’t have empirical information that suggests that high levels of praise creates unreasonable expectations on the part of employees or that subsequently lowered levels of praise (resulting from lowered performance) will form a cycle of demotivating reinforcement. It is better to focus concern on unnecessarily uneven levels of praise, which could lead to unpredictable results.

Passive-Aggressive Managers

So far, we’ve focused quite a bit of attention on the active manager—one who openly acts out his or her attitudes and preferences in the workplace. In doing so, we’ve skipped over a serious problem that can occur in supervising other managers: passive aggression. Active managers leave a clear trail of actions. If those actions are incorrect or inappropriate, they can be observed and reacted to by subordinates and superiors alike. A passive-aggressive (P-A) manager is not so obvious. Serious problems can take place, usually in the form of resistance, procrastination, or low-key negative verbal comments. They might also be characterized by communicating ambiguously, undermining others’ activities and goals, or blaming others for suboptimal outcomes. If the passive element of the personality is a significant part of the behavior pattern, we don’t expect confrontation. It is more likely to be a series of “resistant” activities—an unannounced rebellion of sorts. Depending on the other personalities involved in the situation, this can be very hard to detect.

While resistance may seem reasonable in some cases, the origin of P-A behavior is not simple skepticism. True P-A behavior can surface as an overall desire to not go along or get along with people, projects, requests, and so on. It might be tempting to shrug it off as simple shyness or a bad attitude, but it is neither of those.

Working for a P-A manager can be nightmarish for employees. Positive feedback is infrequent and cynical rejection of employee involvement and suggestions is common. I wish I could offer a simple solution to this fairly serious problem, but there’s no chance of that. The most reliable way to keep P-A managers out of your hierarchy is through careful selection and promotion. Make sure that your human resources staff uses measures to identify P-A characteristics in candidates and that it works with your line managers to make sure that P-A personality types are not hired or promoted into management positions. If you have P-A managers in place, you need to move them out of those positions. It is very unlikely that removing them will push out top performers. In the majority of cases, I would expect to find preexisting performance problems for managers who are also identified as P-A. A P-A manager can undermine implementation of positive supervision practices, but the difficulties he or she can cause go far beyond that.

The communication disorder caused by passive-aggressiveness can be shockingly severe. Controversy has swirled over the August 2, 1985, crash of Delta Airlines Flight 191 in Dallas, Texas, with suspicions of catastrophic interactions between aggressive and P-A flight crew personalities at the center of it. Some have argued that those interactions led to the decision to fly an airliner into a weather system that contained microbursts capable of pushing a low-flying plane into the ground. A reading of the cockpit voice recorder transcript¹ can provide insight into the conversation that occurred prior to the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board later ruled that the crash was caused by a microburst and that it was pilot error to take the plane into that area. The crash killed over 100 people, including both pilots.²

Unionization

Union membership has declined in the United States over the last several decades.³ There are a number of explanations about why this has happened, ranging from an increase in the power of antiunion politicians, to the effects of stronger and broader employment laws, to increasingly individualistic attitudes about employment. There is now some speculation that unionization may be poised for an increase based on the recent tumult in financial, business, and employment markets.⁴ Whatever happens to union membership trends, it is prudent for managers to understand why employees may be drawn to unions. Many assumptions about unions that were formed during their heyday (1940s–1960s) are no longer as valid as they once were, including why workers join. Prolabor forces justify unions by focusing on compensation and working conditions, even though direct comparisons of compensation and working conditions between union and nonunion workers are not as markedly different as they might claim. Antilabor forces claim that unions are a power grab by workers—an attempt to wrest organizational decision-making control away from managers and owners. If that is the intended outcome, it is clearly not working.

One reliable predictor of interest in unions is the quality of the relationship between management and nonmanagement employees. This quality is mainly the responsibility of managers because they are typically in a one-to-many relationship, which magnifies the manager’s role in communication activities. If a manager is hypercritical or perceived to be unfair, the desire for self-protection and, with it, interest in union membership are increased.

I grew up in the South with a genetic distrust of unions, likely from the same chromosome that gave me a lifelong love of football and barbecue. It was not until graduate school that I first heard what I thought was a radical idea: unions originate from, and are most ably sustained by, self-protective behaviors. What gets the dues paid is fear and insecurity regarding management actions. It’s an easy bet that the readership of this book is not prounion, so I won’t waste your time with stories of put-upon workers and their need to develop collective responses. But we can’t ignore self-protection as a motive for unionization activity, and there is little question that it figures significantly in recruitment activities by unions.

How can we limit self-protective tendencies? By demanding that managers act rationally all the time. Self-protection comes from an expectation that unreasonable outcomes will occur for employees without good reason and will be outside of their control. The antidote to fear is rationality. PM emphasizes rational responses to difficult situations in the workplace. Ranting, finger-pointing, and threats are ruled out.

People should not (and generally do not) expect to be absolved of responsibility for significantly poor performance or errors in their work, nor do they expect that the organization will always meet expectations and achieve goals. What they do expect is fair treatment when poor performance and other problems occur. A PM framework emphasizes a calm reaction and a careful evaluation of what went wrong with an eye to preventing it in the future. If a rational system for dealing with problems is in place, the real and perceived need for self-protection is less, and the competition between it and resistance to paying union dues is more intense.

Consider an analogy from a very different type of relationship. In studies of medical malpractice, patients tended to sue doctors more often when they had a poor doctor-patient relationship but were less likely to sue when they had a good relationship with the doctor.⁵ For those of us who believe that the likelihood of a lawsuit depends on the severity of the error committed, this is an eye-opening finding. It is a straightforward argument that, with positive labor-management relations, events in the market and workplace are less likely to trigger confrontational activity (e.g., unionization, grievances).

I am not suggesting that union goals will change if managers use positive techniques. Having been on both sides of the labor-management relationship, I’m confident that unions will always argue for better wages, hours, and working conditions and that management will generally oppose changes that increase costs. There is no way to eliminate the natural tension that exists between the two sides. In relating PM to the effectiveness of unionization efforts, I am focusing on the intensity of commitment to the union’s ideas and goals by rank-and-file members, not union leaders. If managers take a “don’t screw with me” attitude toward union leadership, it sends a threatening message to the rank and file and hands union leaders an opportunity to increase membership.

I witnessed a situation in which a union had such poor membership numbers that decertification was in play until management took a harder line toward contract negotiations and labor relations generally. Union membership tripled during the following year. Membership numbers, as a percentage of the workforce, were still relatively small, but decertification was off the table and a newly invigorated leadership made life miserable for top management for several years. All of that could have been avoided with PM. The fundamental contract between the parties remained unchanged. Leadership on both sides remained unchanged. The only thing that changed was the willingness of union members to pay dues and go along with their leadership, made possible by fear brought on by negative management techniques.

It’s a Buyer’s Market

Here are blunt questions:

• How does PM fit in when times are tough and unemployment is elevated?
• Didn’t my Econ 101 professor say that excess supply lowers prices?
• Why should managers worry about motivation? If people want to eat, they’ll be motivated enough.

I don’t really think that there are very many successful managers who actually hold ideas quite this out of touch, but the underlying point is worth addressing. Is PM needed when employees are in plentiful supply and when the opportunities to go elsewhere are fewer? The short answer is yes. When times are tough and job security (a key factor in determining job satisfaction) is low, organizations have an increased need for positive approaches to overcome generally depressive outlooks that may lead to reduced effort.

Admittedly, high unemployment is typically associated with hard times for the firm (e.g., decreased demand for products or services), but positive approaches remain important. Positive approaches can help to sustain organizational performance when staffs are short and outlooks are bleak and position the organization for better times. PM helps preserve organizational performance in another important way. The “demand” for turnover builds up during hard times, and the emergence from periods of high unemployment is often met with a higher proportion of people changing jobs. If a positive environment is maintained during periods when employees are unable to change jobs, it may help to suppress spikes in turnover when times improve.

Is This Just a “Peace and Love” Thing?

A key misperception of PM is that it requires one to believe that the world is a better place than it used to be and that PM is needed to adjust to this “better” world. This is simply not true. PM does not assume that the challenges managers face are easier to deal with or fewer in number than in the past. With hypercompetition and globalization, it might be easier to argue that management is becoming harder to do well. PM requires a change in what we pay attention to and what we encourage others to pay attention to, and it requires leaders to balance the positive and negative.

Consider an example from presidential politics. When Jimmy Carter was president in the late 1970s, the United States faced several serious problems. First, the economy was struggling and seemed unable to right itself. Second, energy shortages and persistent price increases were a significant burden on many. Third, Islamist militancy began to show itself in the Middle East and South Asia, as embodied by the taking of hostages in Iran. Carter was brutally frank with himself and with the public about these problems. His famous “crisis of confidence” speech,⁶ better known as the “malaise” speech (though the term “malaise” did not appear in the document or delivery) was an archetypal example of focusing on the negative while ignoring the positive. Many believe that focusing on negative events while ignoring accomplishments such as nuclear arms limitation, peace negotiation, and energy conservation was a key factor in Carter’s subsequent struggle to retain the Democratic nomination for president and his loss to Ronald Reagan in November of 1980.

Contrast Carter’s experience with the presidency of Reagan. Conditions for the United States actually worsened after Reagan became president. Middle East terrorism increased with the Beirut bombing in 1983, where almost 300 Americans died. The economy sank into the worst recession it had seen since the Great Depression. There were international conflicts and serious labor problems. Worst, John Hinckley Jr. nearly assassinated Reagan, with the president arriving at the hospital just in time for surgeons to save him. It is powerfully instructive to consider how we recall those times. Reagan’s positive outlook and unwillingness to embrace the negative led the public to believe that better times were ahead despite evidence in hand of serious current challenges. Reagan did not deny the seriousness or extent of the problems that the country faced, but he attempted to balance those negatives with positive information. When one of those high points, the space shuttle Challenger, exploded on take-off in early 1986, his initial focus was on honor, sacrifice, and the nation’s grief,⁷ not on discovering who was to blame (that task was not ignored, just done at a later and more appropriate time). In times where hard evidence of positive events and outcomes were scarce, he balanced the bad news with assurances that Americans were generally on the side of right, honor, and dignity.

Managers can use Reagan’s examples as a model of how to build more balance into how our organizations are viewed. Ignoring the negatives is both a failure to carry out our responsibilities and, frankly, foolish. But attending to those negatives without reminding ourselves and our coworkers of what is going right in our organizations can itself cause undesirable outcomes. As the old wisdom says, “Whenever you are thinking about all the things that happened that you didn’t want to happen, remember all the things that didn’t happen that you didn’t want to happen.”

Should Positive Management Mainly Be Used With Lower Level Employees?

For many managers, it is important to be sophisticated and to possess a certain nuanced knowledge about how things are done in the organization. One might assume that this self-image would lessen desire for praise and recognition. But wanting to be perceived as wise to the ways of organizational life does not equate to a lowered expectation of or appreciation for praise for a job well done. In fact, the elevated esteem needs that we often find in higher level employees could be leveraged by well-placed praise and recognition. In some ways it is easier to create examples about lower level employees because they have more in common across organizations, while higher level positions are more unique to each organization. Still, it is important to apply PM to all levels, not just lower ones. The need for praise and recognition does not change as people climb the organizational ladder. Also, PM can cascade down the hierarchy. If upper managers are experiencing it, they may find it easier to use PM with their subordinates.

“I’m Not Being Negative—I’m Just Being Realistic”

We should assume that we will find managers who are comfortable with negative approaches, perhaps even committed to them as a way of managing, and that they may be very resistant to change. That attitude may show itself in attempts to redefine the terminology to use less pejorative terms and position negative approaches as appropriate or realistic.

It’s best to deal with this kind of resistance head on. This is not a case where extinction techniques (ignoring the resistance) are appropriate. If managers are skeptical, be proactive:

• Make a specific, personal appeal, asking for patience and cooperation.
• Provide reading materials from this book and from the growing positive psychology and PM literature (see table in chapter 4).
• Provide recognition to managers who are quick to adopt PM and be specific about successes associated with implementation.
• Respectfully challenge skeptics. If a manager is willing to express open disagreement with PM implementation, ask how equivalent outcomes could be achieved using another approach. Senior managers who handle resistance should be willing and ready to respectfully debate the topic so that implementation of PM will not be done by fiat, which would be self-contradictory.

Sincerity

For those of us who have detested the “face man”—the overpraising flatterer found in many organizations who constantly insists that things are great, or super, or terrific when they’re not—I need to make a clear distinction between this kind of insincere BS and honest recognition of accomplishments in the workplace. Managers must embrace the use of praise and recognition and not attempt it simply as a technique to extract performance from subordinates. By the same token, it should not be used indiscriminately or for trivial matters. For employees to see the manager in a supportive and respectful role, the PM actions that he or she takes must be independently viewed as worthy by workplace members. If praise is given for insignificant accomplishments, it does more than just dilute its value. It also undermines employees’ confidence in the boss’s judgment. One final caution: Balance is everything here. While it is important to not lavish praise for insufficient accomplishments, one should not be too strict in deciding what is praiseworthy. Tasks that a manager considers routine might be considered substantial by subordinates.

Rational Compassion

While PM is not simply being “nice” to employees, the question remains of what specific goals and mechanisms can be used to change workplace culture. A key part of the answer to this question is rational compassion. Most of us view compassion as an emotional response and not subject to rational decision making. In economic research, however, it turns out that there may be more rationality in compassion, or at least in forbearance, than it appears on the surface. Rational compassion involves balancing sensitivity to people’s needs with the interests of the organization. This means that managers have to see the organization through the eyes of colleagues and subordinates. In a significant number of cases, understanding other people’s expectations about their relationship with the organization will give managers insight. This approach is rational in the sense that it attempts to optimize work relationships, and it is compassionate in its consideration of other people’s viewpoints.

A lot of advice about leadership hinges on being in command and control and not enough focuses on leadership as a function of the led. Rational compassion does not supplant managerial judgment with moral or social justice arguments, but it does seek to supplement it with actions derived from those arguments. People deserve to be understood. That does not mean that they will always get what they want or, being blunt about it, always end up with the fairest result, but the process by which management and leadership decisions are made should incorporate an understanding of employees’ situations and intentions. Specific implementation dos and don’ts based on rational compassion are discussed in chapter 10.