Paradoxes in Leadership

MANAGEMENT OF THE ABSURD

(Richard Farson/Simon & Schuster/March 1997/172 Pages/$13.00)

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 MANAGEMENT OF THE ABSURD
Paradoxes in Leadership

The Big Idea

To understand basic human behavior and relations, we must first recognize that most
often it is irrational, and we cannot simply answer leadership problems with trendy,
simplistic formulas. This artfully written and unique book is fresh in its perspective,
offering an out-of-the-box approach and exploring a new way of looking at things.

Embrace A Different Way of Thinking

First of all, throw out all previous ideas of leadership and human relations that you have
learned over the years. Open your mind to these new ideas. Number one, you cannot
control or manage people. Once you know this, you will go about your leadership role
(and private roles) with less frustration.

For as long as humans are thrown together in organizations, absurdity will remain with
us. There are no techniques offered here, this is a book full of wonderful big ideas.

The Opposite Of A Profound Truth Is Also True

The rise of the fast food industry went right along with that of the gourmet and organic
products boom. Let's take the ideas of pleasure and pain, conflict and peace, good and
evil, love and hate all these opposing forces coexist and in fact enhance one another.

Opposites often coexist in management. To be healthy, or organization needs full and

accurate communication, but at the same time, there is also a level of distortion and
deception embedded within these messages.

Nothing Is As Invisible As The Obvious

It takes someone with a fresh perspective to see what most people don't, even if they
have it in front of their faces everyday:

James Watt observed the power of steam from a teakettle, leading to the invention of
the steam engine and the birth of the industrial revolution. Alexander Fleming saw that
bacteria inhibited the growth of microorganisms, which led to the development of
antibiotics. Henry Ford saw that by making workers do one task repeatedly the
automobile assembly line could produce much more at a faster rate.

Some things that are terribly obvious only need to be pointed out by a pair of fresh eyes

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and applied accordingly.

The More Important A Relationship, The Less Skill Matters

When performing in the area of human relations, our obsession with technique, skills,
and technology does not help.

When one remembers significant events from childhood, the things our parents did for
us that meant a lot to us are often the spontaneous moments of humor, caring, and
thoughtfulness, things that are not found in a "how-to" parenting manual.

The same goes for employee-boss relationships. Employees tend to become more
impressed with the humane side of their bosses, when they show their own vulnerability,
personal struggles, and reveal themselves as people. People respond to what you are
more than what you do. Being your own unique self has nothing to do with skill.

Once You Find A Management Technique That Works, Give It Up.

Meet each situation with an open mind, and not with an armory of techniques. Better
managers transcend technique. Humans follow a "reciprocity rule". This means that
whatever you feel towards me, I will eventually feel the same way towards you.

"If we genuinely respect our colleagues and employees, these feelings will be
communicated without the need for artifice or technique. And they will be reciprocated."
- Richard Farson

Effective Managers Are Not In Control.

Relinquish control and you will become less frustrated. Approach situations with the
attitude of a learner, a teacher, or both.

Our most significant human affairs such as marriage, childrearing, and leadership do
best when we have an occasional loss of control and increase in personal vulnerability.
You cannot control your children, your spouse, your lover, friend, or colleague. We
argue and have interpersonal conflicts because we want the other person to indicate he
or she has had an impact on us.

No amount of marriage counseling, self-help books, parent training classes, or audio

and videotapes that focus on technique will do the trick. Nobody really knows how to
raise a good kid, or have a long-lasting marriage, or keep employees motivated. You
simply can't have all the answers to human problems because the very condition of not
knowing, of being surprised by life, and being unable to handle other people is what
makes us human.

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The people we love the most are the ones we cannot handle. When it comes to
employees, you cannot shape them into what you desire. You can only hope to leave an
impression.

Most Problems That People Have Are Not Problems

A problem is something gone wrong that can be solved or corrected. A predicament can
only be coped with. Our most important human affairs, indeed the most intimate ones,
are predicaments. Often predicaments are made worse when we treat them as
problems.

Executives suffer from always trying to treat predicaments as problems, breaking them
down into parts to be addressed, but predicaments are never handled smoothly.
Predicaments are created by conditions we value and cannot give up. For instance, we
will always have crime for as long as people desire material wealth, freedom, and
urbanization.

Technology Creates The Opposite Of Its Intended Purpose.

The computer was supposed to bring about the paperless office, but today offices seem
to have an even greater amount of paper. The chemicals used in air-conditioning pollute
our atmosphere. Pesticides and preservatives endanger our health. Widely available
graphics software has given us a proliferation of bad quality graphic design.

We Think We Invent Technology, But Technology Also Invents Us.

Take the automobile. This has greatly influenced the way parents raise kids. Children in
every neighborhood have to be driven to school. The automobile has influenced our
dating lives, our social lives. Technology has invented our lifestyles. The computer has
brought about virtual companies, network communities, and many people now have
online relationships. Most people can't live without television, cars, computers,
refrigerators, and phones.

Paradoxes of communication
The More We Communicate, The Less We Communicate.
Most organizations are overcommunicating. There are more than enough faxes, emails,
meetings, and memos going around in every office. Employees are overwhelmed by the
amount of communication they have to deal with every day.

Most communication problems are really balance-of-power problems. When there is an

unequal balance of power, communicating may further weaken the position of the
already powerless. If an employee openly criticizes her boss, she may be fired. In a
marriage, the rejected one may be further rendered unattractive and vulnerable if he

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communicates his needs to the spouse who rejected him. It is only when there is a fairly
equal balance of power that true candid communication can take place.

Top-level management requires a communication system that can truly serve the
strategic interests of an organization. Big bosses spend all their time in meetings,
making memos, and attending conferences. An information system has yet to be
designed based on the way these executive communicate.

In Communication, Form Is More Important Than Content.

From the design of our letterheads, annual reports, and advertising, to the accent our
receptionist has, these details communicate what kind of company we are a part of.
Printed communications tend to carry a heavier weight than handwritten ones, even if
the words used are identical.

Metamessages are the messages communicated to us in a non-verbal, subtler manner.

As children we learn to obey adult authority, fall in line, raise our hands and ask
permission. We learn there are things you can and cannot say to other people. In life,
the metamessage or unspoken message tends to be more powerful than the message
itself.

A round table communicates a more democratic setting. Taking one's shoes and tie off
and sitting on the floor communicates we are in an informal gathering. People are
naturally intimidated by expensive leather office furniture and authentic artwork on the
walls.

Listening Is More Difficult Than Talking.

Listening requires humility to be able to open one's self to another person's point of view.
We risk being changed by that person's view, and we have the impulse to become
defensive of our own views. Listening demands great trust and respect and is really
more of an attitude than a skill.

Praising People Does Not Motivate Them.

Praise only works to reestablish the hierarchy and put an employee in his place. Praise
is an evaluation, and being such, makes the person feel diminished since the manager,
by giving praise as a reward, reinforces his or her own status.

If an ordinary person was to praise a person higher in status, the praise must be given in
a way that shows the difference, like "I loved your painting, Mr. Picasso".

Managers try to make up for the lack of involvement and guidance in their employees'

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work by giving praise.

Praise puts a distance between people and terminates contact. We normally end our
conversations on a positive note, and we try to put a distance between others and
ourselves this way.

Every Act Is A Political Act.

Why do we hire females as secretaries? Why do we offer management positions to
men? Why do we give the bill in a restaurant to the man? Why do we make people retire
at 65?

Sometimes the very laws designed to "protect" women in the workplace actually
demean them. Most women still make only 75% of the pay men get for the same work.
Provisions made for women actually make it look like women are not capable of taking
care of themselves.

From African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians, to women, men, children, gays and
lesbians, handicapped and so on, we have legislation and equal opportunity clauses
supposedly to protect each group. Appointing representatives from each group shows a
fragmented society. Instead of seeing ourselves as one big community, we see
ourselves as different groups all competing against each other.

The Best Resource For The Solution Of Any Problem Is The Person Or Group That
Presents The Problem.
An ex-drug addict is the best resource person to speak in a rehabilitation center.
Alcoholics Anonymous draws on the experiences of former alcoholics to enlighten
others.

It takes a good leader to come up with ways to respect each individual's needs within a
group and see how these needs are accommodated.

Organizations That Need Help Most Will Benefit From It Least.

Psychotherapy works better for mentally healthy people than for those teetering on the
brink of madness. A deeply troubled company will normally not seek help. Leaders of
companies in serious trouble often do not seek help or call in consultants because of the
intense self-examination it requires. (Case in point: Enron)

The person who can change is the one a consultant should focus on. This is normally
the person who has brought the consultant in to look into a problem. The absurd but
practical solution when an individual is being difficult is we do not ask him to do the

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changing. It is often those who are most difficult to handle who are also the most
creative and hardworking people in the company.

Individuals Are Almost Indestructible, But Organizations Are Very Fragile.

Individuals can be very resilient. There are many Holocaust survivors who function
normally and go about the daily business of living, sometimes even better than people
who have never experienced such a trauma.

Organizations on the other hand can be destroyed with one bad public relations disaster,
bad decision-making, or unfortunate events.

The Better Things Are, The Worse They Feel.

This is where we encounter high-order discontent. When things are going well, people
may still not be satisfied and want more. It has been labeled the Theory Of Rising
Expectations. People in Western European countries complain and go on strike for
better benefits and privileges, when their basic lifestyles and salaries are far better than
their Third World counterparts. In life, even in the healthiest of marriages, a spouse may
still be seeking more from her partner, seldom are the complaints of abuse or infidelity.
Her discontent may be of a higher order like, "We don't communicate or connect as
much as before".

Psychologist Abraham Maslow provided us his famous hierarchy of human needs, from
the low-order to the high-order. From this one can expect that those in a healthier
organization tend to have more complaints than those in an unhealthy one. People seek
something better when things are good, not when times are hard.

We Think We Want Creativity Or Change, But We Really Don't.

Organizations normally resist change and do not want to go through the trouble of
implementing a new idea. Creativity is stifled through judgments, evaluations,
intellectualizing, sticking to tradition or stereotyping.

Real creativity always breaks the rules. The greatest achievements by human beings
have been results of people working independently, outside of a university institution, or
in their own small unorthodox organizations. Einstein, Freud, Gandhi, Marx, Darwin or
Edison- all these individuals worked independently.

We Want For Ourselves Not What We Are Missing, But More Of What We Already
Have.
"The difficulty for all of us is that our absorption with what we do well may blind us to
what will enable us to do even better."

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Organizations tend to rely solely on their star product, failing to see what they really
need to do. Just like the way an individual who is always serious needs to learn to
lighten up a bit, organizations have to explore other areas they have not yet opened
themselves up to.

Big Changes Are Easier To Make Than Small Ones.

Sometimes is better to get through the painful big change as quickly as possible in order
to put it behind you. A gradual layoff will spark many protests, but an instant downsizing
effort can spare weeks of agony in the boardroom.

People respect big decisive moves and are more likely to buy into a change when it is
big enough to withstand any attempt at countering it.

We Learn Not From Our Failures But From Our Successes And The Failures Of
Others.
When you are experiencing success, it inspires you to keep on working toward bigger
and better goals. A series of failures demoralizes you.

Gossip becomes the glue of community and social bonding. People can relate more to
stories of unfortunate events happening to others rather than their success stories. It is
human nature to empathize with those who are suffering than with those who are
succeeding.

Success and failure are intimately connected. We cannot experience one without the
other.

Everything We Try Works, And Nothing Works.

The truth is it doesn't make a difference what technique works, because everything
seems to work. Training programs, trendy formulas, following the latest guru - all
methods appear to work when applied. The down side is the new idea may work for a
short while, as an experiment. Give it some time and the effects seem to disintegrate.

Crash diets don't work, but a permanent lifestyle change of exercise and good eating
habits can be more effective. The same is true for management. Lasting change
happens when sound principles are practiced on a daily basis. There is no such thing as
a quick fix when dealing with people.

Planning Is An Ineffective Way To Bring About Change.

Members of an organization tend to be blind to those aspects of the organization crying
out for change. People resist change and prefer to maintain the status quo, even

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programs that aren't working, and contacts with people that are simply liabilities.
Plans are rarely of any real strategic use. The planning done in a low-status
department cannot have any effect on the high-level management.
Planning that does not consult other departments and is focused on just one
department of an organization is limited in scope and cannot be beneficial.
Plans are always made to accommodate relationships with established
suppliers, contacts, and political interests.
Plans are vulnerable to fads and self-interest.
Planning is a process that requires anticipatory and strategic thinking, the basis
for organizational flexibility and readiness.

Organizations Change Most By Surviving Calamities.

People grow because of the effect of loss. Bad experiences force us to reassess our
lives and keep struggling. Suffering builds strength of character in a person, and it can
work for an organization as well.

It's not about the way you manage a crisis, it's about the way you survive it and allow it
to rebuild your organization into something better.

People We Think Need Changing Are Pretty Good The Way They Are.
This is a very important message to all managers who feel frustrated with their
employees. You cannot fix people. Most employees are really trying to do their best.
The more rules you lay down, the more time clocks you install, the more manuals you
distribute- the more you try to control people, the more you create an environment of
distrust. Private meetings that exclude certain personnel are another form of bad
management practice.

A high-trust organization keeps a set of shared values and goals. Communication flows
freely. Managers pay attention to people's personal issues and concerns.

If you believe that human nature is not that bad and work your rules around this belief,
people will respond more positively. Nobody likes to work in a company full of strict rules
and regulations.

When forming teams, each individual brings something unique to the table. Learn to
appreciate the differences in people. The bad manager always tries to fix a person and
make him behave a certain way to conform to the group.

Every Great Strength Is A Great Weakness.

Take IBM and KayPro, both players in the market of personal computers. IBM was a

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heavyweight company but was unable to compete in the market due to its very size as a
corporate giant. Agility doesn't come easy to heavyweights.

KayPro was a small enterprise that moved with lightning speed into the market, but
lacked the size and experience to compete against other giants in the field. Both IBM
and KayPro had strengths, which also were their weaknesses.

Organizations need to be self-aware of their strengths and weaknesses, or they tend to

become inflexible or complacent, whatever size they are.

Morale Is Unrelated To Productivity.

Maslow chose achievers for his studies on self-actualization. These people were among
the greatest achievers in society, but were not necessarily happy. Some were ruthless,
boring, or lacking in humor. People have different reasons for working, it may be
monetary or due to family pressure. You don't necessarily have to be whistling while you
work.

No matter how many little gifts you give your employees, or how many parties you host
and notes of goodwill you distribute, people can sense fakery. They want a genuine
approach to management and there can only be high morale if you as a manager
possess this kind of high morale. Enthusiasm comes from people when it isn't forced.

There Are No Leaders, Only Leadership.

The best leaders are servants of the people. You'll find them going to the blackboard
and writing down the input of everyone in a meeting. They don't take the credit for
themselves but share it with the group.

Our stereotype macho image of a leader has brought us to picturing our leaders as
dominant and aggressive types. Leaders are actually humble servants, and they take
advice from many people surrounding them.

There is no model we can suggest for you to follow. Leaders are like surfers trying to
catch a wave. Their actions may not always work.

The More Experienced The Managers, The More They Trust Simple Intuition.
You need to develop that gut feeling that tells you how to read a situation. Try to see
things clearly, without all the clutter grown-ups have acquired over the years. Go back to
your childhood sense of clarity.

Trust your instincts.

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 Don't allow yourself to be victimized by appearances.
If you believe in something, you are more likely to see it.
You may want to repeat past successes even if what you did then won't work in
this current situation.
First impressions are usually right.
Try to look into things others would rather avoid.
Don't let the pressure of the group thinking make your decision for you.
Unlearn or get rid of the barriers to perception and clear judgment.

Leaders Cannot Be Trained, But They Can Be Educated.

Same banana? Not really. The management of human relations is not a skill. If it were,
we would have "professional" friends and "expert" parents.

Training applies to skill requirements and techniques. Education refers to knowledge

and wisdom.

"With education comes a better understanding of the context in which one's decisions
are imbedded, a better perspective for viewing human affairs, and a better idea of what
is important."

In Management, To Be A Professional One Must Be An Amateur.

"Architecture is like being in love."

-Frank Lloyd Wright

In essence, the word amateur is taken from the Latin "amator" which means "lover". A
professional manager must love his work and do it for it's own sake. Great leadership is
a high art form. The amateur performs his work out of love and the pleasure of
accomplishment. Your passion for your work will indelibly influence others.

Lost Causes Are The Only Ones Worth Fighting For.

Why? Because lost causes tend to be the most humane ones. They require us to live up
to the best in us.

It is good to give up before you start. You know in your heart it may be a lost cause but
you set about working on it anyway. Why do you think there are so many
environmentalists, human rights workers, and non-governmental organizations? These
are idealists who work without any guarantee that they can change the way world
leaders decide on important issues.

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Researchers are working on absurd ideas like greening deserts and growing plants in
seawater. It is about performing a task well, even if the rest of the world thinks it is
unimportant.

My Advice Is Don't Take My Advice.

Advice is the easy way to address a situation without actually having to deal with it. Do
not take the ideas here so literally that you never praise your employees or you never
write a single rule down in a company manual. This book has been written to challenge
your thinking, and make you see things differently. It is entirely up to you on how you
wish to apply these ideas, contemplate their opposites, or throw them all out and start
again.

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