In this series of posts, we are examining the impact of salary negotiations on the formation and evolution of the psychological contract. In the first post (see Part 1: dramatis personae) in the series, we looked at the concept of psychological contract, outlined the stages at which salary negotiations take place and also looked at some of the basic principles in the domain. In this post, we will turn the spotlight on the interaction between the employer and the employee before the employee joins the company and examine its impact on psychological contract.
Very few people will disagree with the principle of “a fair day's wage for a fair day's work”. But what exactly would be the fair salary for a particular job in a particular company at a particular time (or even what will constitute a fair day’s work in the same) is far from simple. This is especially true in the case of those jobs where the employee can influence the results (and even shape the job) to a large degree based on his/her capabilities making the ‘fair salary’ dependent on the individual.
There are different ways in which fairness can be interpreted by the employer and the employee. For example, when a company is hiring a person should the salary be decided mainly based on the previous salary the person? That is, if the company gives a ‘good’ (as agreed by the employer and the employee) increase over the previous salary of the new employee, does that indicate a fair deal? What if the salary offered to the employee is lower than that is being paid to other employees in the company (at the same capability level) doing the same job or similar jobs? Can the new employee consider this as an unfair deal? What if the salary offered to the employee is higher than that is being paid to other employees in the company (at the same capability level) doing the same job or similar jobs? Can the existing employees consider that this deal be unfair to them? Should the 'fairness' be decided purely based on the market forces of supply and demand - based on the current market value of the skillset of the employee?
The two basic ways of arriving at the salary for the new employee (entirely based on the employee’s previous salary or entirely based on internal equity) are extreme cases. Most companies will do some sort of a balancing act with different companies reaching different ‘equilibrium points’. For example, most of the companies try to arrive at the new salary based mainly on the previous salary while ensuring that the new salary is within the broad pay range or compensation band for the job (which is market benchmarked). However, these compensation bands are usually quite broad and there is significant room for ‘discretion’. Again, it is usually difficult to compare the capability level of the candidate with that of the existing employees and hence both the company and the candidate can make widely differing estimates regarding the relative capability level of the candidate.
Also, there is a basic conflict of interest involved in salary negotiations in most situations – the company wants to pay as a low a salary as possible (while ensuring that the candidate accepts the offer) and the candidate wants to earn as a high a salary as he/she can (while ensuring that he/she gets the job offer).
It is this basic conflict of interest coupled with the different ways of interpreting what constitutes the fair salary for the particular employee that make the interactions between the employer and the employee highly potent from the point of view of the formation of the psychological contract.
During the selection process, the employer and the employee will highlight what each can offer in the prospective employment relationship. This essentially a selling process for both sides and there is always the temptation to oversell and to get a closure as quickly as possible. However, this is key ‘moment of truth’ (a critical or decisive time on which much depends) in the employment relationship and any statements made during this process (even if it was just a passing mention) is likely to be interpreted by the other party as a promise and give raise to expectations (that form part of the psychological contract). This is especially true for informal and generic statements that don’t find their way into the formal employment contract. For example, if the employer (or any of the agents involved in the selection process like the hiring manager or the HR manager) makes statements like “No one has left us for salary reasons”, “In our company there are many people who received multiple salary increases in a year etc. it is highly likely to give raise to (unrealistic) expectations later! Thus one has to be very careful in making these statements as they are likely to impact the formation of the psychological contract.
However, there is one important advantage at this stage. Since there is no previous history of interactions between the employer and the candidate, there is no existing psychological contract at this stage. Hence while the parties have to be mindful of the impact of the interactions on the formation of the psychological contract, they don’t have to worry about the possibility of the interactions violating the existing psychological contract. Hence both parties can negotiate as hard as they need to do at this stage (a luxury they won’t have later). They just need to ensure that they don’t say anything that is factually incorrect or misleading.
So what do all these mean? We have seen that there are different ways of interpreting what constitutes the fair salary for the particular employee. I would strongly recommend that the employer explains the process they are using for arriving at the salary in addition to explaining the salary components in detail. Also, if the salary fitment that is being offered has implications for salary progression later (e.g. if the salary offered will put the candidate at the top end of the band which would make the future salary increments lower or if the next increment of the candidate can be prorated as the candidate is joining in the middle of the year) it should be clearly explained. This will enable the candidate to make an informed decision and not to feel like a victim later. Yes, there is a possibility that candidate might not agree with the process and refuses to take up the offer. But this is a much better scenario for both the parties as compared to the scenario in which the candidate joins, feels cheated and leaves the company (or functions at a low level of effectiveness). Also, broad/vague statements that can get misinterpreted should be avoided.
The candidate should also specifically ask for the process for arriving at the salary and seek clarifications on vague/imprecise statements made by the employer. Candidates should also negotiate as hard as they can at this stage, because trying to renegotiate the salary after one joins the company is a much more complicated process and it could be interpreted as lack of commitment (or 'attitude problem')on the part of the employee and a violation of the psychological contract.
In the next post in the series, we will take a closer look at the salary negotiations that take place during the tenure of the employee in the organization and examine its impact on psychological contract (and how the psychological contract influences those negotiations).
Please let me know if you have any comments/suggestions at this stage!
Showing posts with label Organizational Commitment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Organizational Commitment. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Of salary negotiations and psychological contract: Part 1(dramatis personae)
“I feel cheated. If I had known this, I would not have joined this company”, said the frustrated employee. “We had given you a good hike over your previous salary. We had also explained the details of your compensation and benefits when we gave you the offer letter. Once you have signed the employment contract, it is not appropriate on your part to raise issues about it so soon. What somebody else get paid is none of your business”, replied the HR Manager.
This is a scene that gets enacted quite frequently across organizations – with unpleasant consequences for both the employer and the employee. I have often wondered what can be done about it. Based on my experience in the domain (from both sides of the fence!), I think that an exploration of the terrain from multiple perspectives is required to find a reasonable solution to this puzzle. This series of posts is an attempt in that direction. I also feel that while the ‘best solution’ is likely to be context specific, some general guidelines can be formulated.
In the first post of this series, we will begin by taking a closer look at the concept of ‘psychological contract’. We will also conceptualize salary negotiations in terms of the key stages in the ‘employee life cycle’ in which salary negotiations take place.
The psychological contract is a set of mutual expectations held by the employer and employee that might not be captured in the formal employment contract. While the psychological contract is ‘not on paper’, it is very much real and significant as it impacts how the employer-employee relationship evolves. It also influences the key decisions made by the employees like the decision on whether or not to put in discretionary effort and whether or not to leave the organization. Hence maintaining the psychological contract is critical for enabling positive employee relations. Please note that in the case of reasonably well-managed organizations (where a breach of the legal employment contract is unlikely to happen), employee exits almost always happen because of the perceived violations in the psychological contract. Repeated violations of the psychological contract can also prompt the employees to form unions to protect their interest.
Salary negotiation is not the only factor that influences the formation and evolution of the psychological contract. Psychological contract might have other dimensions like organization climate and culture, degree of empowerment, career growth, learning opportunities etc. However, salary negotiation is a very significant factor in terms of the degree of impact on the psychological contract.
For our exploration here, we will use a broad definition of the term 'salary' – to include not only the cash part of the compensation but also the benefits and perquisites. Hence our focus in this series of posts will be on those parts of the psychological contract that have something to do with expectations the employees have regarding the salary (including variable salary), benefits & perquisites and the expectations that the employer has on what the employees need to do to earn the same. They also include mutual expectations regarding how (how fast, by how much and based on what) these (salary, benefits & perquisites) will change during the employment relationship. Mutual expectations regarding if, when and how these can be (re)negotiated will also be included. We will assume that the 'employer' is represented by the managers of the employee (people in the reporting chain of the employee and also the HR managers).
Salary negotiations happen at multiple points during the tenure of an employee. However, for the purpose of our discussion here, we will conceptualize the same in terms of the salary negotiations at the following stages
1. Before the employee joins the company (when the ‘employee’ is still an outsider)
2. During the tenure of the employee (from the time the employee joins the organization till he/she submits the resignation)
3. After the employee submits the resignation (when the company is trying to keep the employee back by making a counter offer)
Of course, this is a simplified picture. For example, if stage 3 is successful, the game goes back to stage 2. After that, stage 2 & 3 can (and often do) get repeated later. Also, an employee can indicate his/her intention to quit without formally submitting the resignation.
We will explore each of the stages in detail in the subsequent posts in this series. We will also look at some interesting phenomena observed in this land like 'batch parity' and 'entitlement mentality'. In addition to this, we will look at some other dimensions of psychological contract not related to salary and their implications. For the time being, let us look at a few basic principles.
a. When it comes to forming expectations (psychological contract), what was left unsaid is often more important than what was said during the interactions between the employer and the employee. Psychological contract is unwritten, broad and implicit as compared to the employment contract which is written down, specific and explicit. Hence there is much more room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation.
b. Employees often carry assumptions from their previous employment experiences. Hence they might assume (without any input on the part of the new employer) that something will exist or will not exist in the new organization. Similarly employers (based on the behaviors of existing employees) might assume (without any input on the part of the employee) that the new employees will do or will not do something (See ‘Appropriate metaphors for organizational commitment’ and ‘Passion for work and anasakti’ for more).
c. Keeping in mind (a) and (b) above, it makes a lot of sense on the part of both the employee and the employer to surface and validate as many of the possible expectations and assumptions as possible (See ‘On what good looks like’ for details). However, this might conflict with the need to strike a deal quickly (e.g. to get the employee to accept the offer or to get the employer to make a job offer). It has to be noted that any shortcuts employed here can lead to long term pain even if they provide some short term gain.
d. The self image of the employee (and the self image of the manager) can have significant impact on the creation and evolution of the psychological contract. Interactions with the colleagues and team members also impact the psychological contract.
e. When it comes to psychological contract, ‘perception is reality’. Breach of psychological contract may occur if employees perceive that the company (or any of its agents like the managers), have failed to deliver on what they perceive was promised. It can also happen when the employer (manager) perceives that the employee hasn’t kept his/her end of the bargain. Since psychological contract was ‘not on paper’, often the parties don’t initiate a discussion immediately to check whether the perceived breach of the contract really took place. Usually the issue remains ‘underground’ for quite a while and by the time it surfaces it would have gained a lot of negative momentum.
f. Once the breach of the psychological contract occurs, it is often very difficult to repair. Hence prevention is much better than cure in this case!
g. On the positive side, psychological contract provides an excellent opportunity for the organization to engage with (and retain) the employees on multiple dimensions - transactional and relational. It can create a deep alignment between the employee and the employer and provide a sense of meaning a purpose to the employees. Hence it makes sense (for both the employers and the employees) to do whatever they can to actively shape and manage the psychological contract!
In the next post in the series, we will turn the spotlight on the interaction between the employer and the employee before the employee joins the company.
Please let me know if you have any comments/suggestions at this stage!
This is a scene that gets enacted quite frequently across organizations – with unpleasant consequences for both the employer and the employee. I have often wondered what can be done about it. Based on my experience in the domain (from both sides of the fence!), I think that an exploration of the terrain from multiple perspectives is required to find a reasonable solution to this puzzle. This series of posts is an attempt in that direction. I also feel that while the ‘best solution’ is likely to be context specific, some general guidelines can be formulated.
In the first post of this series, we will begin by taking a closer look at the concept of ‘psychological contract’. We will also conceptualize salary negotiations in terms of the key stages in the ‘employee life cycle’ in which salary negotiations take place.
The psychological contract is a set of mutual expectations held by the employer and employee that might not be captured in the formal employment contract. While the psychological contract is ‘not on paper’, it is very much real and significant as it impacts how the employer-employee relationship evolves. It also influences the key decisions made by the employees like the decision on whether or not to put in discretionary effort and whether or not to leave the organization. Hence maintaining the psychological contract is critical for enabling positive employee relations. Please note that in the case of reasonably well-managed organizations (where a breach of the legal employment contract is unlikely to happen), employee exits almost always happen because of the perceived violations in the psychological contract. Repeated violations of the psychological contract can also prompt the employees to form unions to protect their interest.
Salary negotiation is not the only factor that influences the formation and evolution of the psychological contract. Psychological contract might have other dimensions like organization climate and culture, degree of empowerment, career growth, learning opportunities etc. However, salary negotiation is a very significant factor in terms of the degree of impact on the psychological contract.
For our exploration here, we will use a broad definition of the term 'salary' – to include not only the cash part of the compensation but also the benefits and perquisites. Hence our focus in this series of posts will be on those parts of the psychological contract that have something to do with expectations the employees have regarding the salary (including variable salary), benefits & perquisites and the expectations that the employer has on what the employees need to do to earn the same. They also include mutual expectations regarding how (how fast, by how much and based on what) these (salary, benefits & perquisites) will change during the employment relationship. Mutual expectations regarding if, when and how these can be (re)negotiated will also be included. We will assume that the 'employer' is represented by the managers of the employee (people in the reporting chain of the employee and also the HR managers).
Salary negotiations happen at multiple points during the tenure of an employee. However, for the purpose of our discussion here, we will conceptualize the same in terms of the salary negotiations at the following stages
1. Before the employee joins the company (when the ‘employee’ is still an outsider)
2. During the tenure of the employee (from the time the employee joins the organization till he/she submits the resignation)
3. After the employee submits the resignation (when the company is trying to keep the employee back by making a counter offer)
Of course, this is a simplified picture. For example, if stage 3 is successful, the game goes back to stage 2. After that, stage 2 & 3 can (and often do) get repeated later. Also, an employee can indicate his/her intention to quit without formally submitting the resignation.
We will explore each of the stages in detail in the subsequent posts in this series. We will also look at some interesting phenomena observed in this land like 'batch parity' and 'entitlement mentality'. In addition to this, we will look at some other dimensions of psychological contract not related to salary and their implications. For the time being, let us look at a few basic principles.
a. When it comes to forming expectations (psychological contract), what was left unsaid is often more important than what was said during the interactions between the employer and the employee. Psychological contract is unwritten, broad and implicit as compared to the employment contract which is written down, specific and explicit. Hence there is much more room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation.
b. Employees often carry assumptions from their previous employment experiences. Hence they might assume (without any input on the part of the new employer) that something will exist or will not exist in the new organization. Similarly employers (based on the behaviors of existing employees) might assume (without any input on the part of the employee) that the new employees will do or will not do something (See ‘Appropriate metaphors for organizational commitment’ and ‘Passion for work and anasakti’ for more).
c. Keeping in mind (a) and (b) above, it makes a lot of sense on the part of both the employee and the employer to surface and validate as many of the possible expectations and assumptions as possible (See ‘On what good looks like’ for details). However, this might conflict with the need to strike a deal quickly (e.g. to get the employee to accept the offer or to get the employer to make a job offer). It has to be noted that any shortcuts employed here can lead to long term pain even if they provide some short term gain.
d. The self image of the employee (and the self image of the manager) can have significant impact on the creation and evolution of the psychological contract. Interactions with the colleagues and team members also impact the psychological contract.
e. When it comes to psychological contract, ‘perception is reality’. Breach of psychological contract may occur if employees perceive that the company (or any of its agents like the managers), have failed to deliver on what they perceive was promised. It can also happen when the employer (manager) perceives that the employee hasn’t kept his/her end of the bargain. Since psychological contract was ‘not on paper’, often the parties don’t initiate a discussion immediately to check whether the perceived breach of the contract really took place. Usually the issue remains ‘underground’ for quite a while and by the time it surfaces it would have gained a lot of negative momentum.
f. Once the breach of the psychological contract occurs, it is often very difficult to repair. Hence prevention is much better than cure in this case!
g. On the positive side, psychological contract provides an excellent opportunity for the organization to engage with (and retain) the employees on multiple dimensions - transactional and relational. It can create a deep alignment between the employee and the employer and provide a sense of meaning a purpose to the employees. Hence it makes sense (for both the employers and the employees) to do whatever they can to actively shape and manage the psychological contract!
In the next post in the series, we will turn the spotlight on the interaction between the employer and the employee before the employee joins the company.
Please let me know if you have any comments/suggestions at this stage!
Monday, February 18, 2013
Of reasons, rationalizations and collective delusions!
"Why don't you just trust my judgment? If you question me like this, I will come in the way of your performance appraisal next year", said the business leader. "I have utmost respect for your capability. I also understand that I get paid to support the business. But, I won't be earning my salary if I don't put forward my professional opinion. If you want someone who will just execute whatever you ask without discussion, you can hire such a person at a much lower salary than what I am paid", replied the HR manager.
I spent the first five years of my career in HR in HR consulting. One of the things that amazed me was how easy it was to into walk into any organization, do a diagnosis and find many areas where there was potential for significant improvement. Why would internal HR leaders (who were much more experienced than me) fail to identify and act on those areas? Initially, I thought that this was mainly because of the ‘fresh eyes’, specialized diagnostic tools and 'learning from other contexts' that the external consultant brings in. After having spent the next 10 years in internal HR, I am convinced that that there is much more to this.
Most of the organizations are not optimized for effectiveness. Organizations tend to gravitate towards a way of working that is most comfortable for the people who run it – even if it takes away from the effectiveness and efficiency. Of course, the leaders would like to believe (and make others believe) that what they are doing is the best way of functioning. Perpetuating this ‘convenient collective delusion’ (or at least not disturbing it) is often one of the unstated expectations the leaders have from the HR Business Partners. This works even better if there HR leader is someone with impressive credentials – with best of the qualifications and prior experience in reputed MNCs and with a reputation for having done transformational work in those organizations. If such a person is the HR leader and he/she is not doing any transformation in the current organization, then the organization must be perfect – without any need to change!!!!
Another way to look incident that we saw in the beginning of this post is to view it as a reflection of the hierarchical nature of the organization. As we had seen in ‘Appropriate metaphors for organizational commitment’, in hierarchical organizations if someone asks the leader for a clarification, it can very easily get misinterpreted as a ‘lack of competence on the part of the person asking the question’ or even as ‘lack of trust in the judgment of the leader’. The logical consequence of this is the phenomenon of ‘passive resistance’ which is rampant in hierarchical organizations (see ‘Paradox of passive resistance’).
Of course, such situations can occur in the case of HR leaders also and not just in the case of business leaders. But as I have said in 'In praise of HR generalists', they are often more 'sinned against than sinned". This is especially true because of their de facto role as scavengers in organizations – they are expected to clean up the mess that the business leaders have created. As an example, let us look at the so called ‘change management’ initiatives undertaken by HR Managers. Often the HR Leaders (are allowed to) get involved too late in the change process. By that time the wounds have already been created and the best that can be done is to dress the wounds. Change management turns into a ‘communication program’ at best or it might even generate into a ‘con job’. In such a case, HR Managers are forced to reverse-engineer a nice ‘why’ for what has been done so far and this is when reasons become rationalizations!
Talking of hierarchical organizations (see ‘The Culture Lizard’ for more), I have often wondered how do they manage to sustain their way of functioning over long periods of time without too much trouble from the employees (even with the significant in changes in workforce demographics) – apart from the obvious use of ‘carrot and stick’. I might now have a partial answer to this.
I arrived at this hypothesis based on an analogy. Recently, I read a book (in Malayalam) titled ‘vedangalude nadu’ (The land of the Vedas) by EMS Namboothiripadu. In this book (on the Indian History and Culture), EMS describes how the caste system in India managed to sustain itself over many centuries – without any major upheavals/social revolutions to overthrow the same.
It works something like this. The caste system has an elaborate hierarchical structure – with the 4 basic castes being divided into sub-castes and sub-sub-castes with the hierarchy among the sub-castes and sub-sub-castes also clearly defined. What makes this structure sustainable is that while a caste higher in the hierarchy (say, caste 1) can oppress any other cast lower in the hierarchy (say, caste 2); they also allow the latter to oppress all the other castes lower than the latter in the hierarchy (say, castes 3 to 100). Because of the large number of layers in the hierarchy (because of the fine division into numerous sub-castes and sub-sub-castes), the number of people in the lowest rung of the structure (i.e. who is oppressed by everyone else without having the opportunity to oppress someone lower than them in the hierarchy), is often too low – lower than the critical mass required for a social revolution.
My hypothesis is that something similar might be at work in sustaining the hierarchical cultures in organizations. Is it not too much of a coincidence that hierarchical organizations usually have a large number of organization levels/grades? Another phenomenon that supports this hypothesis is the Janus-faced behavior pattern that is often observed among the leaders in hierarchical organizations, in which there is a huge difference between the way the leaders behave in the presence of their seniors (people higher than them in the organizational hierarchy/'food chain') and the way they behave in the presence of their juniors - like the two different faces of Janus looking in opposite directions (Please see 'Followership Behaviors of Leaders' for a related discussion).
Now, let us look at the options available to an employee who finds himself/herself in an organization that is suffering from collective delusions. The obvious option is to leave and find another organization that is a bit more sane (psychologically healthy). However, organizations are often quite effective in not revealing their collective delusions to outsiders and the collective delusions become apparent only when one starts working in those organizations. Hence, a better strategy might be to find a middle path by creating a 'pocket of sanity' within one's circle of influence. One can also try using creative approaches for breaking collective delusions - by enabling the people to examine their deeply-held assumptions - in a manner that does not trigger their psychological defenses. See 'Of Organization Development Managers and Court Jesters' for an example.
So, what do you think – about the Reasons, Rationalizations, Collective Delusions & the contribution of HR in cleaning up the Organizational ecosystem’?!!
I spent the first five years of my career in HR in HR consulting. One of the things that amazed me was how easy it was to into walk into any organization, do a diagnosis and find many areas where there was potential for significant improvement. Why would internal HR leaders (who were much more experienced than me) fail to identify and act on those areas? Initially, I thought that this was mainly because of the ‘fresh eyes’, specialized diagnostic tools and 'learning from other contexts' that the external consultant brings in. After having spent the next 10 years in internal HR, I am convinced that that there is much more to this.
Most of the organizations are not optimized for effectiveness. Organizations tend to gravitate towards a way of working that is most comfortable for the people who run it – even if it takes away from the effectiveness and efficiency. Of course, the leaders would like to believe (and make others believe) that what they are doing is the best way of functioning. Perpetuating this ‘convenient collective delusion’ (or at least not disturbing it) is often one of the unstated expectations the leaders have from the HR Business Partners. This works even better if there HR leader is someone with impressive credentials – with best of the qualifications and prior experience in reputed MNCs and with a reputation for having done transformational work in those organizations. If such a person is the HR leader and he/she is not doing any transformation in the current organization, then the organization must be perfect – without any need to change!!!!
While it might appear that ‘collective delusion’ is too strong a term to be used in the context of business organizations, it has to be noted that the well-documented phenomenon of ‘group think’ is a form of collective delusion. The key ‘ingredients’ for collective delusions include cultural biases & prejudices, wishful thinking, denial of bad news, malleable memory and forced manufacture of consent/punishing the dissenters. Some of these tendencies are highly contagious – especially when the people involved have worked together for a long time (enabling ‘mutually assured delusions’) – a common situation in hierarchical organizations, where the leaders often have a core group of people around them who stick on with the leader when the leader changes roles or even when the leader moves to a new organization. It can also be said that the leaders play a key role in the process of ‘sense-making’ in organizations (see ‘Architects of meaning’) and hence delusions tend to trickle down from (or 'inspired by')the leaders.
As, I had mentioned in ‘Paradox of business orientation of HR’, while there is no doubt that the HR function exists to support the business, the exact nature of the ‘business orientation’ that is required to support the business most effectively is a complex one. This becomes especially important, if HRM has to mean something more than ‘making people do more work without paying them too much and without risking disruptions to the business operations’.
Another way to look incident that we saw in the beginning of this post is to view it as a reflection of the hierarchical nature of the organization. As we had seen in ‘Appropriate metaphors for organizational commitment’, in hierarchical organizations if someone asks the leader for a clarification, it can very easily get misinterpreted as a ‘lack of competence on the part of the person asking the question’ or even as ‘lack of trust in the judgment of the leader’. The logical consequence of this is the phenomenon of ‘passive resistance’ which is rampant in hierarchical organizations (see ‘Paradox of passive resistance’).
Of course, such situations can occur in the case of HR leaders also and not just in the case of business leaders. But as I have said in 'In praise of HR generalists', they are often more 'sinned against than sinned". This is especially true because of their de facto role as scavengers in organizations – they are expected to clean up the mess that the business leaders have created. As an example, let us look at the so called ‘change management’ initiatives undertaken by HR Managers. Often the HR Leaders (are allowed to) get involved too late in the change process. By that time the wounds have already been created and the best that can be done is to dress the wounds. Change management turns into a ‘communication program’ at best or it might even generate into a ‘con job’. In such a case, HR Managers are forced to reverse-engineer a nice ‘why’ for what has been done so far and this is when reasons become rationalizations!
Talking of hierarchical organizations (see ‘The Culture Lizard’ for more), I have often wondered how do they manage to sustain their way of functioning over long periods of time without too much trouble from the employees (even with the significant in changes in workforce demographics) – apart from the obvious use of ‘carrot and stick’. I might now have a partial answer to this.
I arrived at this hypothesis based on an analogy. Recently, I read a book (in Malayalam) titled ‘vedangalude nadu’ (The land of the Vedas) by EMS Namboothiripadu. In this book (on the Indian History and Culture), EMS describes how the caste system in India managed to sustain itself over many centuries – without any major upheavals/social revolutions to overthrow the same.
It works something like this. The caste system has an elaborate hierarchical structure – with the 4 basic castes being divided into sub-castes and sub-sub-castes with the hierarchy among the sub-castes and sub-sub-castes also clearly defined. What makes this structure sustainable is that while a caste higher in the hierarchy (say, caste 1) can oppress any other cast lower in the hierarchy (say, caste 2); they also allow the latter to oppress all the other castes lower than the latter in the hierarchy (say, castes 3 to 100). Because of the large number of layers in the hierarchy (because of the fine division into numerous sub-castes and sub-sub-castes), the number of people in the lowest rung of the structure (i.e. who is oppressed by everyone else without having the opportunity to oppress someone lower than them in the hierarchy), is often too low – lower than the critical mass required for a social revolution.
My hypothesis is that something similar might be at work in sustaining the hierarchical cultures in organizations. Is it not too much of a coincidence that hierarchical organizations usually have a large number of organization levels/grades? Another phenomenon that supports this hypothesis is the Janus-faced behavior pattern that is often observed among the leaders in hierarchical organizations, in which there is a huge difference between the way the leaders behave in the presence of their seniors (people higher than them in the organizational hierarchy/'food chain') and the way they behave in the presence of their juniors - like the two different faces of Janus looking in opposite directions (Please see 'Followership Behaviors of Leaders' for a related discussion).
Now, let us look at the options available to an employee who finds himself/herself in an organization that is suffering from collective delusions. The obvious option is to leave and find another organization that is a bit more sane (psychologically healthy). However, organizations are often quite effective in not revealing their collective delusions to outsiders and the collective delusions become apparent only when one starts working in those organizations. Hence, a better strategy might be to find a middle path by creating a 'pocket of sanity' within one's circle of influence. One can also try using creative approaches for breaking collective delusions - by enabling the people to examine their deeply-held assumptions - in a manner that does not trigger their psychological defenses. See 'Of Organization Development Managers and Court Jesters' for an example.
So, what do you think – about the Reasons, Rationalizations, Collective Delusions & the contribution of HR in cleaning up the Organizational ecosystem’?!!
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Appropriate metaphors for Organizational Commitment
"We need more commitment in this organization. Employees should just trust their managers and the organization and do what they are asked to do. Instead, they get confused and start asking questions", said the senior HR professional. It was my second encounter with this person (See 'Passion for work and anasakti', for the details of the first encounter that happened many years ago). Like what happened last time, this statement set me thinking. I have realized that interactions like this prompts me to examine my own opinions/assumptions and hence enrich my understanding. That is why I treasure these encounters!
For the purpose of our discussion here, let us define Organizational Commitment as the psychological attachment or affinity that employees have to the organization they work for. It is highly useful for the organization/employer as organizational commitment (or certain types of organization commitment - to be more precise) can have a positive impact on important workplace outcomes like employee retention, attendance, performance and extra-role behavior. There exists a significant volume of literature on organization commitment (e.g. affective commitment, continuous commitment, normative commitment etc.), its antecedents and its outcomes.
Now, let us come back to the statement made by our senior HR professional. What intrigued me the most was the likely underlying assumptions in his statement about the behavioral manifestations of commitment and trust. My objective is not to prove that these assumptions are wrong. Having been a people manager for more than a decade, there have been many situations where I felt that it would be so much better for everyone if my team members just did what I asked them to do without forcing me explain everything. Different assumptions are valid to different extents in different contexts. The objective here is just to examine if there are other ways of looking at the situation.
To begin with, I am not sure if 'getting confused' or 'asking questions' necessarily indicates lack of commitment. It might just be that the employee does not have enough information/clarity on what exactly needs to be done and how. Often, this is the result of the so called ‘curse of knowledge’. As the manger might have additional information/background/big picture understanding & knowledge/expertise about the situation/task the employees don’t have, what seems so simple, clear and obvious to the manager might not be so for the employees. But since the manager does not realize this (i.e. as he burdened by the ‘curse of knowledge’) he does not feel the need to provide all this information. Hence the most reasonable response on the part of a committed employee is to seek clarifications. However, in some organizations it could be culturally more acceptable for the employee to ‘muddle through the situation’ as compared to seeking clarifications upfront. In such cases it is the organization culture (and not the employee) that needs fixing (see 'Placebos, Paradoxes & Parables for Culture Change').
Sometimes, it is possible that the employee has a different view from that of the manager. In this case also, the most effective response is to discuss the matter upfront. But if such a behavior is not permitted/feasible, it can lead to 'passive resistance', especially on the part of the 'good' employees. As we have seen ‘Paradox of passive resistance’, it is often the highly competent (and hence capable of seeing the limitations of the approach suggested by the manager) and committed (and hence caring too much about the organization to accept the suboptimal solution) employees who exhibit passive resistance in an organization context where they can’t express their disagreement directly without seriously jeopardizing their careers.
Now let us look at the ‘trust’ aspect. I think that expressing the feeling of confusion and/or seeking clarifications can actually be a sign of the employee’s trust on the manager. If this trust did not exist, the employee won’t make himself vulnerable by expressing the feeling of confusion or by seeking clarifications (and hence revealing his lack of understanding). In a way, it also demonstrates the trust the employee has on the manager’s competence (to be able to provide the clarification). Of course, expressing confusion/asking questions can also be a defensive behavior – to avoid/delay the task. It is also possible that questioning too much when there is a critical need to take urgent action is counterproductive. My point is just that expressing confusion/asking questions doesn’t necessarily indicate lack of trust. It is interesting to note that the type of trust implied by our senior HR professional (on the omniscience and infallibility of the manager/organization) boarders on trust in God. That kind of trust would be appropriate in a religious/spiritual context but not in the context of business organizations! This brings us to the topic of metaphors and the appropriate use of metaphors.
Metaphors are highly useful tools for thinking. Metaphors facilitate the understanding of one conceptual domain (typically an abstract one) by relating it to another more familiar conceptual domain (typically a more concrete one). They are so much a part of our lives and thinking that often we are not fully conscious of the metaphors we use. It has also been argued that by examining the metaphors we use, we can a learn a lot about ourselves – our values and assumptions. A good metaphor is generative. It helps us to develop new ideas, perspectives and understanding about the topic that we are exploring (especially when the topic is a relatively unfamiliar one). But the use of metaphors also has its disadvantages. Since a metaphor is not an exact comparison, often inaccurate/irrelevant/misleading meanings & ideas creep in into our thought process/understanding. Since we might not be fully conscious of the use of metaphors in our thinking, this can be dangerous.
Now let us look at a couple of metaphors used to talk about (think about) the ‘employer-employee’ (employment) relationship. The most common one is that of ‘marriage’ – with sometimes a finer distinction being made between ‘arranged marriage’ and ‘love marriage’. While this metaphor help us to generate useful ideas (e.g. the importance of ensuring high degree of ‘person-organization’ and ‘person-job’ fit at the time of selection), it also brings in meanings that might not be appropriate (e.g. the requirement for making a long term commitment at the time of joining the organization – reflected in statements like ‘we should hire only those people who are willing to make a long term commitment to the organization’). As a social institution, we don’t yet have a viable alternative to marriage. But we do have viable alternatives to lifelong employment. In some societies, marriage is a sacred bond. But employment might not be so. While stability/continuity of employments is important for business, the disruption caused by employee attrition is often no way close to the trauma caused by the dissolution of marriage. Again, in the context of frequent rightsizing and reorganization, a sacred longtime employment commitment might not be feasible even from the organization’s point of view.
Another metaphor is that of the family (with the employer being the parent and the employee being the child). While this metaphor also helps us to generate useful ideas (like encouraging high degree of mutual trust & collaboration, care/benevolence towards the employees, extra-role behavior/going the extra mile etc.), it also brings in meanings that might not be appropriate (like a lopsided relationship/power balance, assumption that the employer/manager always ‘knows best’, encouraging ‘Parent-Child’ interactions as opposed to ‘Adult-Adult’ interactions– in the Transactional Analysis sense – between the employer/manager and the employee etc.)
So where are we now? We have found that two of the most common metaphors used to talk about (think about) the ‘employer-employee’ (employment) relationship have significant disadvantages. They also create avoidable complications when it comes to figuring out what kind of trust and commitment would be appropriate in an organizational context. However, metaphors have tremendous rhetorical value and hence they are highly useful for leaders/managers in the complex endeavor of ‘motivating’ or ‘inspiring’ employees (Please see ‘Power of carrot and stick’). Metaphors are also be very useful for employees to find meaning (or to make sense) in the workplace (Please see ‘Architects of meaning’). Again, it would be very difficult (or even impossible) to totally avoid the use of metaphors as they are such an integral part of our thinking process. Hence metaphors are here to stay and we need to make the best use of them.
Are there metaphors that are more appropriate for helping us understand commitment and trust in the employment relationship? May be, there is no one metaphor that is appropriate. The best course of action might be to use multiple metaphors (e.g. marriage, family, contract, partnership, citizenship, mission, journey, marketplace, channel, tribe, village, casino etc.) to generate a wide range of ideas on the various aspects/dimensions of the topic/concept, while consciously watching out for spurious meanings/ideas that are likely to come in as part of that process, so that we can select the useful ideas (and discard the irrelevant/misleading ones) enabling us to come up with richer understanding and better responses!
Any ideas/comments/metaphors?
For the purpose of our discussion here, let us define Organizational Commitment as the psychological attachment or affinity that employees have to the organization they work for. It is highly useful for the organization/employer as organizational commitment (or certain types of organization commitment - to be more precise) can have a positive impact on important workplace outcomes like employee retention, attendance, performance and extra-role behavior. There exists a significant volume of literature on organization commitment (e.g. affective commitment, continuous commitment, normative commitment etc.), its antecedents and its outcomes.
Now, let us come back to the statement made by our senior HR professional. What intrigued me the most was the likely underlying assumptions in his statement about the behavioral manifestations of commitment and trust. My objective is not to prove that these assumptions are wrong. Having been a people manager for more than a decade, there have been many situations where I felt that it would be so much better for everyone if my team members just did what I asked them to do without forcing me explain everything. Different assumptions are valid to different extents in different contexts. The objective here is just to examine if there are other ways of looking at the situation.
To begin with, I am not sure if 'getting confused' or 'asking questions' necessarily indicates lack of commitment. It might just be that the employee does not have enough information/clarity on what exactly needs to be done and how. Often, this is the result of the so called ‘curse of knowledge’. As the manger might have additional information/background/big picture understanding & knowledge/expertise about the situation/task the employees don’t have, what seems so simple, clear and obvious to the manager might not be so for the employees. But since the manager does not realize this (i.e. as he burdened by the ‘curse of knowledge’) he does not feel the need to provide all this information. Hence the most reasonable response on the part of a committed employee is to seek clarifications. However, in some organizations it could be culturally more acceptable for the employee to ‘muddle through the situation’ as compared to seeking clarifications upfront. In such cases it is the organization culture (and not the employee) that needs fixing (see 'Placebos, Paradoxes & Parables for Culture Change').
Sometimes, it is possible that the employee has a different view from that of the manager. In this case also, the most effective response is to discuss the matter upfront. But if such a behavior is not permitted/feasible, it can lead to 'passive resistance', especially on the part of the 'good' employees. As we have seen ‘Paradox of passive resistance’, it is often the highly competent (and hence capable of seeing the limitations of the approach suggested by the manager) and committed (and hence caring too much about the organization to accept the suboptimal solution) employees who exhibit passive resistance in an organization context where they can’t express their disagreement directly without seriously jeopardizing their careers.
Now let us look at the ‘trust’ aspect. I think that expressing the feeling of confusion and/or seeking clarifications can actually be a sign of the employee’s trust on the manager. If this trust did not exist, the employee won’t make himself vulnerable by expressing the feeling of confusion or by seeking clarifications (and hence revealing his lack of understanding). In a way, it also demonstrates the trust the employee has on the manager’s competence (to be able to provide the clarification). Of course, expressing confusion/asking questions can also be a defensive behavior – to avoid/delay the task. It is also possible that questioning too much when there is a critical need to take urgent action is counterproductive. My point is just that expressing confusion/asking questions doesn’t necessarily indicate lack of trust. It is interesting to note that the type of trust implied by our senior HR professional (on the omniscience and infallibility of the manager/organization) boarders on trust in God. That kind of trust would be appropriate in a religious/spiritual context but not in the context of business organizations! This brings us to the topic of metaphors and the appropriate use of metaphors.
Metaphors are highly useful tools for thinking. Metaphors facilitate the understanding of one conceptual domain (typically an abstract one) by relating it to another more familiar conceptual domain (typically a more concrete one). They are so much a part of our lives and thinking that often we are not fully conscious of the metaphors we use. It has also been argued that by examining the metaphors we use, we can a learn a lot about ourselves – our values and assumptions. A good metaphor is generative. It helps us to develop new ideas, perspectives and understanding about the topic that we are exploring (especially when the topic is a relatively unfamiliar one). But the use of metaphors also has its disadvantages. Since a metaphor is not an exact comparison, often inaccurate/irrelevant/misleading meanings & ideas creep in into our thought process/understanding. Since we might not be fully conscious of the use of metaphors in our thinking, this can be dangerous.
Now let us look at a couple of metaphors used to talk about (think about) the ‘employer-employee’ (employment) relationship. The most common one is that of ‘marriage’ – with sometimes a finer distinction being made between ‘arranged marriage’ and ‘love marriage’. While this metaphor help us to generate useful ideas (e.g. the importance of ensuring high degree of ‘person-organization’ and ‘person-job’ fit at the time of selection), it also brings in meanings that might not be appropriate (e.g. the requirement for making a long term commitment at the time of joining the organization – reflected in statements like ‘we should hire only those people who are willing to make a long term commitment to the organization’). As a social institution, we don’t yet have a viable alternative to marriage. But we do have viable alternatives to lifelong employment. In some societies, marriage is a sacred bond. But employment might not be so. While stability/continuity of employments is important for business, the disruption caused by employee attrition is often no way close to the trauma caused by the dissolution of marriage. Again, in the context of frequent rightsizing and reorganization, a sacred longtime employment commitment might not be feasible even from the organization’s point of view.
Another metaphor is that of the family (with the employer being the parent and the employee being the child). While this metaphor also helps us to generate useful ideas (like encouraging high degree of mutual trust & collaboration, care/benevolence towards the employees, extra-role behavior/going the extra mile etc.), it also brings in meanings that might not be appropriate (like a lopsided relationship/power balance, assumption that the employer/manager always ‘knows best’, encouraging ‘Parent-Child’ interactions as opposed to ‘Adult-Adult’ interactions– in the Transactional Analysis sense – between the employer/manager and the employee etc.)
So where are we now? We have found that two of the most common metaphors used to talk about (think about) the ‘employer-employee’ (employment) relationship have significant disadvantages. They also create avoidable complications when it comes to figuring out what kind of trust and commitment would be appropriate in an organizational context. However, metaphors have tremendous rhetorical value and hence they are highly useful for leaders/managers in the complex endeavor of ‘motivating’ or ‘inspiring’ employees (Please see ‘Power of carrot and stick’). Metaphors are also be very useful for employees to find meaning (or to make sense) in the workplace (Please see ‘Architects of meaning’). Again, it would be very difficult (or even impossible) to totally avoid the use of metaphors as they are such an integral part of our thinking process. Hence metaphors are here to stay and we need to make the best use of them.
Are there metaphors that are more appropriate for helping us understand commitment and trust in the employment relationship? May be, there is no one metaphor that is appropriate. The best course of action might be to use multiple metaphors (e.g. marriage, family, contract, partnership, citizenship, mission, journey, marketplace, channel, tribe, village, casino etc.) to generate a wide range of ideas on the various aspects/dimensions of the topic/concept, while consciously watching out for spurious meanings/ideas that are likely to come in as part of that process, so that we can select the useful ideas (and discard the irrelevant/misleading ones) enabling us to come up with richer understanding and better responses!
Any ideas/comments/metaphors?
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