Managers' Corner
The Accidental Saboteur: Three Small Sins that Undermine your Company in a Big Way
by Quint Studer | Published in December 2007 Departments
Whether you’re a leader or an employee, you want your company to succeed, right? Of course you do. After all, your paycheck depends on it. But the vast majority of companies — even vibrant organizations that operate with little noticeable dysfunction — are filled with saboteurs. That’s right. Employees at every level do small, seemingly insignificant things to sabotage their own success.
Even the best leaders and the most dedicated, hardworking employees do these things. They may not seem like major sins, but their cumulative effect can be very destructive. After all, a chocolate here or there may not blow your diet, but when you grab a handful every time you walk by the candy dish, well, the bill will eventually come due.
Here are three common sins committed by accidental saboteurs:
1 Relentless negativity. The next time you’re having lunch in a restaurant, listen in on the conversations at nearby tables. Chances are, you’ll hear people griping about their workloads, difficult clients, annoying coworkers or the ridiculousness of corporate policy. Everyone does it, but if they realized how harmful it was to their company, perhaps they’d think twice.
The solution is to hone the fine art of managing up.
Managing up means positioning your people, products or company in a positive light. The trick is hardwiring the technique into their corporate leadership practices. Managing up doesn’t just happen; you have to make it happen in a systematic way. Help employees understand what can happen when negativity is allowed to breed — good people quit and customers leave — and they’ll be more likely to stop doing it.
2 Creeping we/they-ism. Most leaders inadvertently foster the “we/they“ phenomenon — as in, “Well, Rick, I fought for your pay raise but you know Human Resources makes those decisions“ — which has a divisive effect on company culture.
This is rarely a deliberate choice but rather the natural fallback position of someone who hasn’t had formal leadership training. (After all, you don’t want Rick to be mad at you, right?) Problem is, you’re sabotaging your own culture.
Instead of blaming HR in the above example, a leader might say, “When I talked to Denise over in HR, she pointed out that health insurance premiums have risen 23 percent over the past year so pay increases have to be postponed. The company is working really hard to maintain the best possible coverage for all of us.“
See the difference? You’re managing up HR and, simultaneously, you’re positioning the company as a united entity.
3 Giving low performers a pass. Let’s say your employee Carol consistently comes in late, gets “headaches“ every other (nonpayday) Friday and spends more time chatting up coworkers than she does working. Others will notice — and they will be resentful. But worse than merely causing contention in the ranks, turning a blind eye to the Carols in your organization squelches profitability. Why? Because middle performers get pulled down to the low performer level, while high performers either disengage or leave.
This is a sin of omission, not commission. It’s easier not to confront low performers, and a leader can find a thousand other things to do instead. But until you move them either up or out, your company will never advance beyond short-term gains. The low performer is an anchor holding everyone else back.
Recognize anyone you know in these examples? Heck, recognize yourself? Don’t despair. Work on stopping (or at least minimizing) these three sins inside your company and you’ll be amazed at the improvement you’ll see.
It’s not easy to change these acts of subtle sabotage, because they are natural to some extent. After all, it’s human to want to vent your frustration. It’s human to avoid conflict. That’s why these three sins are so prevalent in the business world. But change is possible. And the results feel so good that you’re motivated to keep working toward excellence. And it’s that ongoing will to improve — combined with the right hardwired behaviors — that creates a high-performance organization.
About the author: Quint Studer
Quint Studer is the CEO of Studer Group, a health care consulting firm, and the author of, most recently, “Results That Last: Hardwiring Behaviors That Will Take Your Company to the Top“ (Wiley, October 2007).
Contact: quint@studergroup.com