My website cvdhruve.com

My domain name cvdhruve.com has been taken by someone else, because I failed to renew it in time. I have created a website under a (slightly different) domain name, cdhruve.com (though it's not competely ready yet.)

VW emissions scandal - The futility of blaming toxic work culture on the company's leadership

When a scandal of some sort is exposed, I always wait for the subsequent news stories that inevitably say something like,  "toxic work culture" was to blame. The individuals apparently responsible for this toxicity are then named and shamed.

In this vein, here's an article from Fortune blaming the toxic work culture on Ferdinand Piech, VW's former chairman:
The man who created VW's toxic culturestill looms large

But the regularity with which this happens should point to something else. It is not about individuals. It is about the workplace system: that of a dictatorship.

There is simply no point in repeatedly blaming individuals. 

The importance of naming relationships

There’s an interesting story about the build-up to a war that never actually resulted in one, for want of a good name for the war. In 2001 Indian forces were building up, apparently in preparation for war with Pakistan after an attack on India’s parliament.

The question was, would India launch a war? Journalist Shekhar Gupta put this question to the then Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Instead of answering the question, Vaypayee countered with his own: what should the war be named? If there wasn’t an answer to that question, war was ruled out.

It might seem a stupid question, but in it lay a deeper question: what was the objective of the war? Do you call it a war of liberation, a war of pulverization or a war of revenge? If you are confused about the name, you’re likely to be confused about the end-game you’re after. A name can serve as a sort of heuristic, to quickly reveal an underlying motive or truth.

In the event, the war didn’t happen.

Although the similarity to naming wars may seem tenuous, we give names to relationships all the time too, so we have some indication of what’s going on. A couple of examples are marriage and friendship.

Conversely, we can give names to relationships by watching the behaviours that are revealed in them. At work, we haven’t given a name to the most important relationship in an employee’s life - the relationship between boss and subordinate. What name should we give this relationship? The short answer: dictatorship, because that’s what boss and subordinate behaviours reveal. 

Comments? Email me cvdhruve@gmail.com

Why we should replace ‘team players’ with ‘mission players'

Are you a team player? Chances are you’re going to say ‘yes.’ Most people pride themselves on being team players. Job adverts specify team players. Job candidates plaster their resumes with ‘team player.’ HR departments send off people for ‘team playing’ training.

But let’s first see what ‘team player’ means in conventional wisdom. Typically, a team player is someone who works for the benefit of the team. Here’s a wonderful team player, as generally prescribed:

• Communicates effectively
• Is reliable
• Has a positive attitude
• Participates actively
• Listens actively
• Shares information willingly
• Looks to solve problems rather than complain
• Pitches in without being asked or told
• Is adaptable
• Is self-motivated and proactive
• Makes the boss look good (unstated)

You get the drift.

In every list of desirable team-player traits, I’ve not once seen, “Willingness to openly dissent” or “Courage to tell the truth to power.”

Teams are considered to be successful if team-players nod their heads enthusiastically and nobody steps out of line, whoever defines that line (typically the boss). I googled images for ‘team player’ and predictably, all the images had happy people in groups – holding hands, exchanging high-fives, locking arms and so on. There wasn’t a single image of disagreement and someone saying, “Hey, we’re doing something seriously wrong!”

If the team is pulling in one direction and an individual disagrees and frantically pulls in another direction, the individual is not considered to be a team player. Because most of all, team players are not ‘disruptive.

Yet in reality, team players have been responsible for all kinds of problems and disasters, deaths even. This sounds ludicrous. But in many cases, team players - by their complicit silence, unwillingness to fight, or career-first pliability - have been instrumental in mission failure.

Bizarrely, truth-tellers aka whistle-blowers are ostracised for NOT being team players. This is a telling indictment of how we currently define ‘team player.’ It’s no surprise that individuals who call out wrongdoing are labelled with a term (whistle-blower) that is separate from ‘team player’. In many whistle-blower cases, team-members get away lightly and are often rewarded, while the whistle-blower suffers a ruined career.

The point is, in relation to mission success, it may be critically important to step out of line and not be a ‘team player.’ For example, in the space shuttle Challenger disaster, an engineer, the late Roger Boisjoly, went against the decision to go ahead with the launch – he repeatedly made representations that a disaster was waiting to happen. Clearly not a team player then. He was over-ruled, though he was subsequently proven right by events. Nonetheless, his career nosedived. But had his team focused on mission success rather than team ‘success,’ the disaster would not have happened.

The problem with focusing on the team’s success is that team members may have implicit short-term goals based on their individual careers. A company may have a long term mission focused on the next 10 years, whereas the teams could have quarterly goals achievable only by damaging the mission.

The worst part is, if there’s mission failure, the first thing that's checked is, “Did the teams work properly?” ‘Properly’ as defined by conventional wisdom of course. If the answer is yes, nobody seems to care that the mission itself was compromised. All the effort then shifts to shunting and hounding out any whistle-blowers, ie non-team players. This is insanity but unfortunately, it’s reality.

So what we need are mission players. We need to start using the term ‘mission players.’ We need to seek out mission players. We need to look for resumes that show proven ability to tell the truth to power. We need to advertise for people who can focus on a mission.

Of course, I am not saying that team-skills are unimportant. They are. But the ability to focus on the mission should count the most. Only then will whistle-blowers be respected and rewarded, rather than penalized.  

Comments? Email me cvdhruve@gmail.com

What workplaces need to learn from Uber's rider rating

I've started using Uber only recently. One thing I really respect is the company's decision to allow the drivers to rate riders.

I was in an Uber car yesterday, and during our ride the driver said, "Passenger is God to me" (a variation of the "Guest is God" tradition in Indian hospitality). While it was nice to hear that, I also liked what he said next - that Uber drivers get to rate their customers too.

This 'rider rating' is terrific because it balances the power between the driver and rider. Otherwise, drivers would have to put up with bad behaviour without recourse. My driver told me that the worst offenders were drunks who treated him liked they owned him, just because he was the driver. If there was no rider rating system in place, I am sure the driver would feel powerless to do anything.

The one draw-back is that the Uber app doesn't explicitly tell you (as a customer) that the driver will rate you. Perhaps if the app did that at the point of trip booking, 1) the customer would be alerted right at the start of the ride and 2) customer behaviour would be better.

This rating system is what I'd like to see workplaces emulate. Not only should the boss rate the subordinate, but the subordinate should also rate the boss (ie, not just 360 feedback).

Comments? Email me cvdhruve@gmail.com

Whistleblower in the UK navy - story in the Independent

Here's a story about an apparent whistleblower in the UK navy, published in the Independent newspaper:

Royal Navy investigates Trident whistle-blower William McNeilly who claims nuclear programme is a 'disaster waiting to happen'

According to the whistleblower, submariner William McNeilly, the Trident nuclear submarines are vulnerable to terrorist attacks because of poor security and general inadequacy. Of course, the Royal Navy is investigating all this. 

The article quotes Mr McNeilly as saying that he went public with his allegations only after he “raised concerns through the chain of command on multiple occasions” without success.  

One thing I've seen, in virtually all whistleblower cases, is that the whistleblower always tries to go through the "chain of command" first. This rarely works because the chain of command is a dictatorship which, by its very nature, seeks to shut down bad news and eliminate the messenger. 


Comments? Email me: cvdhruve@gmail.com

Whistle-blowers and the policy-reality death trap

Here’s one thing I’ve discovered after reading many whistle blower stories: there is often an unbridgeable gulf between what a company or organization’s stated policies are, and what the “chain of command” really wants. The policies are usually idealistic, well-meaning and clearly ethical.  And of course, they’re very well publicized both inside and outside the company. Yet, when they are contrary to what the company ‘leadership’ wants, the policies are unceremoniously and quietly junked. But the façade - that the policies are very much in place – is still maintained.

This reminds me of the days of communism when East Germany called itself the “German Democratic Republic,” when in reality it was a full-blown dictatorship. Just because the country called itself a democracy didn’t mean you could take that as policy and behave like a free citizen.  The “policy” of democracy was literally a death trap if you took it as reality.

Similarly, whistle-blowers suffer when they naively believe in company policies. I’m not talking about whistle blower protection policies, but merely the policies the organization says are important, for example, “a culture of safety.”

The whistle blower stands on what she believes is firm ground, and blows the whistle. Then, to her horror, she watches the ground turning into quicksand, devouring her career. The only difference is that unlike in a natural disaster, the whistle-blower knows the quicksand is being engineered by the organization itself.  

The harsh lesson to be learnt is: don’t obey company policy. Instead just obey your dictators at work, and all will be well for you. 

Comments? Email me: cvdhruve@gmail.com

Why subordinates don't disagree with bosses

The author Upton Sinclair said it best: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Brilliant and bang on target. 

Comments? Email me: cvdhruve@gmail.com

Brilliant Dilbert cartoon!

Dilbert cartoon out today, about communication "up the chain of command"

Check it out here. 

Why asking, "Why do jerks succeed?" is the wrong question

I'm sure you've come across articles similar to this one, "Why Jerks Get Ahead."

Jerks may get ahead, and that leads to much hand wringing on why this happens and how everyone else should unleash his or her inner jerk to move up the ladder.

But "Why do jerks get ahead?" is the wrong question to ask. The question to ask is, "Will an organisation full of jerks getting ahead, get ahead?"

Why do women outlive men?

Yesterday, a friend asked me a brilliant question. Here's the issue he presented to me. He said that in marriages (certainly in earlier decades) men had control, and women held a subordinate position relative to their husbands. Further this subordination is mandated by several religions, and many women made "obedience" promises as part of their wedding vows..

In my book, I've quoted the Whitehall studies that  show mortality and health depend on your grade in the organization hierarchy. The higher up you are in the org chart, the better your health is. Higher grades mean higher levels of control, resulting in better health levels.

My friend's question was, how can we reconcile the Whitehall studies with the fact that women have a higher life expectancy than their husbands, given that women ostensibly have lower control than their husbands within marriage?

I'm guessing that there are two main reasons for this phenomenon:

1. Women traditionally "married up". They wanted a man who was more powerful than they were, in terms of wealth, income, status, education, ambition and so on. Further, they wanted men physically dominant, ie taller and stronger than themselves. Also, this imbalance of power was actually a source of comfort for the woman, as it provided a sense of security (I'm obviously making some broad and sweeping generalizations here).

2. The man was in the position of protector, in that he was primarily responsible for his wife and family's safety and security, including providing for them. It was in his self-interest to protect his family. That said, many men did abuse their wives, as the system was still that of a dictatorship. Nonetheless, this "dictatorship system" does not seem to have an overall negative effect on life expectancy of women (I am of course not talking of extreme cases of abuse that  resulted in women dying of grievous injuries).

In contrast, bosses are in no way responsible for your "safety" (in this case, job security). Your boss's main job is definitely not to care for you, or provide for you, or protect you. 

The future of healthcare: not your doctor, but the system

Dr Atul Gawande is one of my favourite writers. In his latest article, titled "Big Med", Dr Gawande draws parallels between the efficiency of restaurant chains such as the Cheesecake Factory , and the (in)efficiency of the US healthcare system.

Dr Gawande compares the two systems and says (page 10, para 7), "Patients won’t just look for the best specialist anymore; they’ll look for the best system."

While I don't mean to compare two different contexts, I've said something similar in my book about leadership: that leadership is a system, and we have to compare leadership systems, rather than the leaders themselves. Leaders are important, in the same way that individual doctors are important. There are bad leaders and good leaders, and good doctors and bad doctors. Nonetheless, these individual differences can pale in comparison to systemic differences. 

Sally Ride, astronaut who supported Boisjoly, passes away

Just yesterday, I posted about the passing of Roger Boisjoly. And today, I read that Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, passed away yesterday. (NY Times obituary here)

At a time when Mr Boisjoly was being shunned by practically everyone because he revealed the truth about Challenger, Ms Ride backed him. According to Boisjoly's obituary in the NY Times, "He [Boisjoly] later said he was sustained by a single gesture of support. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, hugged him after his appearance before the commission.“She was the only one,” he said in a whisper to a Newsday reporter in 1988. “The only one.”

Rest in Peace, Sally Ride. We should all derive inspiration and strength from her example.
 
(Comments? Email me at cvdhruve (at) gmail.com) 

Rest in Peace, Roger Boisjoly, engineer who battled hard to stop Challenger launch

I've just found out (I know it's rather late) that Roger Boisjoly passed away on the 6th of January this year, aged 73. As someone who's written about the Challenger space shuttle disaster and examined the events closely, I came to respect Mr Boisjoly as a true hero. I'm deeply saddened that he has passed away and it feels like a trusted and dear colleague (though I've never met him) is no more. I've watched several videos in which he's featured, and the strength and courage of his convictions in the face of terrible (both literally and metaphorically) opposition stand out. 

Mr Boisjoly stood up to his managers at Morton Thiokol and NASA the night before the fateful launch. He had also repeatedly warned his bosses that there were problems with the rocket booster O ring seals at cold temperatures.  For stating all this,  he was targeted. According to an obituary in the New York Times, "[H]e paid the stiff price often exacted of whistle-blowers. Thiokol cut him off from space work, and he was shunned by colleagues and managers. A former friend warned him, “If you wreck this company, I’m going to put my kids on your doorstep,” Mr. Boisjoly told The Los Angeles Times in 1987."

"He [Boisjoly] had headaches, double-vision and depression. He yelled at his dog and his daughters and skipped church to avoid people. He filed two suits against Thiokol; both were dismissed."

Imagine the kind of mental trauma - mental torture really - he underwent, all for doing the right thing. 

Rest in Peace Mr Boisjoly. We will continue your fight. 

Comments? Email me cvdhruve (at) gmail.com

The "Survival of the Fittest" fallacy in organizations

Here's a quote from an article in Vanity Fair (July 3, 2012) titled, "Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant":


“Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees. ”[Kurt] Eichenwald writes. “If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, 2 people were going to get a great review, 7 were going to get mediocre reviews, and 1 was going to get a terrible review,” says a former software developer. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.” [emphasis mine]

In my book, published in 2007, I wrote, "It [survival of the fittest] works fine if you are trying to fight, survive, and win as an individual. But in the organizational context, if everyone is busy fighting, surviving, and trying to win as individuals, will the organization survive and win?" (pages 147-148).


Comments? Email me cvdhruve (at) gmail.com

Another "routine" firing: bank employee dismissed for whistleblowing

"When Linda Almonte alerted her boss at JPMorgan Chase about potential fraud in a major deal she was helping to close, she expected him to applaud her great catch. Instead, he fired her." (source: JPMorgan Chase Whistleblower: 'Essentially Suicide' To Stand Up To Bank) 

I would encourage you to read the full story, to see the extent of the personal devastation that the firing caused. 

Also quoted in the article is Dana Gold, a senior fellow at the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for whistleblowers: "Employees get fired all the time for blowing the whistle. We see it so much, it's a predictable phenomenon."

Why is it such a predictable phenomenon?  Because the system's the same, ie a dictatorship system.

Moreover, if you're a whistleblower, the agony doesn't just end with being fired. You can't get another job in the same line of business, the one you're qualified for.Linda is quoted saying, "You google me and my name is everywhere. Any company that would hire me will see that. I can never live that down."

Also quoted is Sherron Watkins, the Enron whistleblower: "You won't find someone that is labeled a 'whistleblower' who has been able to return to their original career."

Why can't you get another job after being fired for whistleblowing? The problem is that all companies are dictatorships, and no dictatorship likes to hire dissidents from another dictatorship.

It's gut-wrenching to read stories like these again and again, and again, but until the system changes, we'll unfortunately have more of the same.

(Comments? Email me - cvdhruve (at) gmail.com) 

I've just created a QuickQuiz - A Trivia Quiz on the Word "Boss"

I've just created a QuickQuiz - A Trivia Quiz on the Word "Boss": Play this QuickQuiz now and test your knowledge!

UK's NHS tries to gag doctors

More evidence that the workplace is a dictatorship (fear) system - this time from the British National Health Service (NHS).

Millions spent on doctor 'gagging orders' by NHS, investigation finds

Some key points from the article:

Nearly 90 per cent of severance agreements hammered out between NHS trusts and departing doctors contain confidentiality clauses

At least 170 doctors in England and Wales agreed such a settlement with the trust employing them – backed up by pay-offs totalling more than £3m.

31 trusts simply refused to disclose the size of the payments

The point is, free systems do not want to gag their employees - rather, they would do everything to encourage them to speak out.

(If you have any comments, please email me at cvdhruve@gmail.com. I have disabled the comments feature as there's too much spam)

Where do the laws of a system come from?

Below is a very insightful take on systems - it's guest post from my friend and fellow Systems Thinker, Biren Shah.

I have been informally studying man-made systems (as opposed to the naturally found, complex, self-organising systems). And the most intriguing, confusing, frustrating and enraging thing I find about our systems (that is, our understanding of systems, and the practice of designing and building systems) is the rules and laws we use; thinking foolishly (and convincing ourselves) that they will help us gain control over the behaviour (and thus, outcome or results) of a system.

We have succeeded in convincing ourselves that rules and laws are what govern a system... drive a system... and give rise to a 'fixed' behaviour of a system. But like everything else, we have it topsy-turvy. We design and draft laws, to define the system... and create all the chaos and confusion that is the hallmark of our human systems - economic, social, educational...we have never stopped and wondered, if the above is true, WHO (or what) implements the rules - how are these rules followed, when there is no one single, central, governing feature or creature.

If we observe natural systems, we will see that rules, or laws, are followed and implemented by the whole system itself - the system constituents (both: the components, and the WAY they interact - the processes). There is no 'police' - a dedicated, separate governing part. That means, the rules and laws of a system are the property that arises BECAUSE of a 'coming together of specific components, in a specific way'.

The rules, or laws, are actually the emergent property of a system. They do not define (that is, make) a system; rather, they are a feature of the system.

The other important thing we can make out is, these rules do not reside (as knowledge) in the components of the system, but they arise, and thus reside, in the system - the complex interaction. That is, a lion does not know the law of 'the survival of the fittest', simply because, there is no 'law'. 'Survival of the fittest' is a property that emerges in our planet's natural world, out of the way the whole natural world interacts.

In other words... laws (what WE call laws) arise out of the system... the system does not arise out of the laws. So, why don't we see this? Recognise this?
 
We are focused on the behaviour - the 'emergent properties' - of a system. But we assume that those properties are 'designed' (and not 'emergent'). and then hastily move on, never stopping to wonder about who or what 'designs' this system.

Why?

What I am noticing is... that BECAUSE we look at life (and thus systems) from the 'fear' perspective of helplessness... and victimhood, we NEED to feel in control... we WANT to be in control. This 'control' perspective colours the way we perceive the behaviour of a system. We are focussed on finding WHAT controls the behaviour of systems... what makes it predictable? And as soon as we can find an answer, an explanation that sounds rational, we hastily move on.

And so, we convince ourselves that the laws are 'written in stone' - fixed - for that particular system. We don't see that the 'laws' are a result of the complex interplay of the system's components. and since both, the components and the interplay, are ever changing, the 'laws' may also change in accordance.

(If you have any comments, please email me at cvdhruve@gmail.com. I have disabled the comments feature as there's too much spam)

Air India plane crash in Mangalore - probable cause

For those who aren't aware, an Air India aircraft crashed on May 22 2010, resulting in the deaths of 158 people. The accident took place in Mangalore, a city in southern India.

Essentially, the aircraft overshot the runway and plunged into a valley that lay just beyond the runway. Weather conditions were apparently not ideal; moreover, the runway is what's called a "tabletop" runway, leaving little room for error.

As I watched news of the accident unfold, I hoped that a probable cause was NOT that the co-pilot warned against landing, and being over-ruled by his commander. Why did I hope this? Because a rather similar thing happened 33 years back, resulting in the world's worst aviation accident (more on this later). If it was a probable cause again, it would mean the lessons hadn't been learnt.

Unfortunately, my hope doesn't appear to match reality. According to a newspaper report, the co-pilot of the Air India aircraft twice urged his commander to not land, but go around and try landing again. The co-pilot was over-ruled, and the commander tried landing the plane - with terrible results.

This problem - of the co-pilot or junior crew members being over-ruled by the flight commander - is not a new one. In fact, the airline industry has a type of training called CRM (Crew Resource Management) to ensure that commanders don't make arbitrary decisions. Yet, it happened on the Air India flight.

Worse, this happened 33 years back and was a factor in the world's worst aviation accident, in which 583 peopled died. In that accident, two 747s (belonging to KLM and the now defunct airline, Pan Am) collided on a runway in Tenerife, Spain. The flight engineer on the KLM asked his captain if they were indeed cleared for take-off, and if the Pan Am had cleared the runway. The captain brushed aside his engineer's warning, and continued taking off - with the Pan Am still on the runway. (The Tenerife disaster is a case study in my book).

Of course, disasters are not just the result of a commander over-ruling a junior. Typically, multiple factors are involved. In the Air India case, the airfield itself has issues; in the KLM's case, fog covered the runway, so visibility was poor.

That said, the human factor is a hugely significant one - and it's important to remove the human factor in these accidents. Specifically, it's important to remove the fear-factor - or the power-abuse factor - in cockpits. CRM is meant to neutralize these issues - but it doesn't. Why not? Simple. Because CRM does not take into account the power imbalance between a boss and his subordinate.

(If you have any comments, please email me at cvdhruve@gmail.com. I have disabled the comments feature as there's too much spam)