I came across this video from author and Harvard professor Youngmee Moon on her “Anti-Creativity Checklist” and wanted to share it with our BUILT TO LEAD readers. Then consider whether any or all of Professor Moon’s 14 points apply to your or your company’s attitudes about creativity and risk taking.
Check out the message, and the chill music (5 minutes or so).
As long as we’re making a case for looking squarely at how poisonous some attitudes are to creative evolution, I offer a similar 5-point checklist from a hypothetical manager for killing off any spirit of collaborative engagement among employees, too. Do you think I’ve captured the full list? Or can you think of any more?
1. Laminate Your Mission Statement in Plastic. And put it on little cards that attach to those long belt lanyards that our “human assets” use to gain admittance to our corporate offices. This will help them see it everywhere they go and remember what the mission is. You remember it, don’t you? The executive committee dreamed it up on that long golf outing in Costa Rica they took in 2007. They announced it at that big “town hall” meeting right after. (Boy, they all had nice tans, didn’t they)? It said something about “being the best” in our industry, or maybe it was “delivering value for our shareholders”…or doing something for our customers, maybe? (Nah…couldn’t be for THEM). Anyway, the long-lasting plastic laminated mission statement will really communicate how committed we are to it, and motivate everyone. Right?
2. Impose Order and Control. Our new operating slogan hits just the right note: “Everything not compulsory is forbidden.” We certainly can’t have the inmates running the asylum, now can we? If our human resources felt they were free to do their jobs the best way they knew how, say, by leveraging their strengths, management would never be able to eliminate variation. And variation is cost. And cost is bad. So we make sure to specify not only what must get done, but how it must get done. Things are so tidy this way.
3. Idiot-Proof All Jobs. This dandy strategy is connected to #2 above. We need to make sure anybody can do any job. This helps a lot when we need to lay off or replace older, more expensive associates. It also helps eliminate all that costly variation. We’ve started small, with the least important jobs, like customer service. All “service agents” must follow totally scripted interactions written by our finance group. This brilliantly efficient move gets customers off the phone quickly and drives them to our web site, where they won’t have to deal with our personnel at all. Sure enough, Marketing complained that our technology was no different than our competitors. Their positions were eliminated. (Too much negativity).
4. Institutionalize Subjective Annual Personnel Evaluations. We believe in accountability. That’s why we are committed to give formal feedback once a year, then stack-rank everybody across all departments, and spend three months “calibrating” the inevitable variation across the functional silos. We then tie the ratings and rankings to pay, perks, and position for the top 15%. The bottom 85% will get the message, and be motivated to try harder next year. Perfect!
5. Pay for Performance. Our Human Capital System is focused on results. That’s why we use the most advanced motivational techniques, including bonuses and stock options (some call them “carrots,” along with the occasional “sticks”) to focus people on the rewards and punishments, and away from their work. This keeps our human capital moving towards managing consistent quarterly EBITDA growth for the Wall Street analysts. Which I’m pretty sure was part of our mission statement. I think…
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Whew, that was tough to write. I think I need a shower…
I sure hope you don’t recognize much of this crap at your place of OPUS. (I fear, though, that you might). Tell us about it.
Meanwhile, I’ll blog out the magic antidote to all this hogwash sometime soon. For now, I have carpal tunnel syndrome of the brain.
BUILT TO LEAD 