Monthly Archives: September 2018

Strange fetishes of organizations

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A recent visit to the Museum of Sex in Amsterdam enlightened me about various strange sexual fetishes. I grew up in the sixties in an era when, let’s put it this way…I assumed that there was very little I did not know. I was wrong.

So I got to thinking, is there such thing as a fetish in organizational behaviour? If we describe fetish as obsessive interest, the answer is a resounding yes. So in this post, I want to provide three examples of rampant organizational fetishes that I have seen, and I believe that my readers can see, all around them

  1. The fetish of defining away complexity. Given the complexity of reality, overlapping responsibility is often necessary, creating the need for people to communicate and decide together in the areas of disagreement where overlap occurs. Instead of focusing on addressing this need, organizations prefer to focus on over-definition of roles, responsibilities and process clarity. Thus, our first fetish.
  2. The fetish of overdosing on gender diversity. Oh yes, I may be in trouble for this. However, there are roles where professional competency trumps gender as a selection criteria. When a hospital wants to recruit 6 brain surgeons, three of them of each gender, this makes no sense at all. As a patient at least heaven forbid, I would prefer their recruiting six top surgeons, in the unlucky scenario that I would need their services.
  3. The fetish of engagement. Most management (except perhaps on social media) is about getting as much as possible for as little as possible over an optimized period of time. In a bad market place, employers exploit employees, and in a fast growing market with skill shortages, employees squeeze and extort their employers. It’s a market dynamic for the most part and since 2008, it is a blood bath for employees. Engagement is a sedative aiming at dulling the true nature of the relationship. The goal of engagement is more for less, regardless how the pig is perfumed. Most people know this, but the fetish is rampant.
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Remembering Hyman Bernard

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There is no one else alive who remembers Hyman Bernard, or more accurately, Hyman Ber Schwartz. And I ain’t so young either, and although I have not begun to pack my bags, I feel this is a good time to share what I remember. For those readers who like small short stories with happy endings, this is the time to stop.

Papa Hymie (my grandfather) was the youngest of three children. His brother , Uncle Jack, and his sister, Auntie Ida, lived in the British Mandate of Palestine in Raanana, which they founded. Hymie, born in Hamilton Ontario where his father was a ritual slaughterer, never joined Jack and Ida in Palestine. As a matter of fact, my grandfather was not involved in Judaism or Zionism. (Nor was my father, who was a total atheist).

My grandfather was very much like a character from John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath-dirt poor, uneducated, a bit crass. He smoked like a chimney and swore like a trooper. My Dad Phil used to sing me ditties that “I learned from Papa Hymie”.

In the great recession, my grandfather had no money and no food. He left Montreal for a few years to work in the States, so he could send money to my grandmother (Sadie) and my Dad, an only child. My grandfather came back  after the recession as a broken man. In the period when Papa was in the States, my father and grandmother lived with 12 other very poor people in one room, sharing a toilet at the end of the hall for the entire floor. Papa felt guilty and useless for no fault of his own.

When I was born, Papa Hymie used to pick me up and walk me in the stroller on rue Draper. I was told that this was the only thing that made him happy, except smoking.

He worked as a menial clerk in a storeroom at Reitmans, a job he obtained through family connections. Papa got cancer when I was very young and they amputated his leg. I was not told about this, but when I came to visit him at the Jewish General or the Royal Vic (I don’t remember), I noticed that there was only one leg under the blanket, and I was sitting where the other leg should have been.

Papa came home from the hospital, coughed all the time; he was in severe pain. His bother Jack came to visit him from Israel in the late 1950s; those were happy moments.

                                              Papa and Uncle Jack (on right) 1956

I have learnt that Papa had sent Jack and Ida blankets and food, in 1956, due to severe shortages in the emerging State of Israel.

I was visiting my grandparents one day on 5350 Victoria (corner of Isabella) when Papa could not take the pain any more. I remember him being carried away on a stretcher, and then learning about death for the first time.

For many years, I resented being asked to “bring me my leg”, but not any more. I named my son after him, Amir Haim. And I myself often pardon myself for being gruff and very down to earth, because it runs in the family.

And I do wish I could have known Papa a bit more.

My son- some similarity?

 

 

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The exaggerated importance of people skills

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I am no stranger to the domain of “people skills”, having made a good living working in this area all my working life, as well as in my military career.

Every so often, there are hurricane-like winds exalting the importance of people skills. At times, it seems to me that people skills are as important as oxygen or clean water. But they are not.

I want to point out the contexts in which people skills are not all that important to success.

  1. In a shitty job market, the importance of people skills take a beating, because management thinks you should kiss their ass simply for having a job.
  2. When someone has extremely good and rare skill set, it is not all that important  for that person to have people skills.
  3. In cultures which foster subservience and deference, people skills are a nice to have, but things get done anyway.
  4. I do believe that feigned interest in people is far more important than authentic people skills for senior executives. My experience is that very senior managers often have reached the top because they put task before people, set impossible deadlines which stress people beyond belief, and ignore the squawking from below the deck. I belief that people skills often (not always) hinder people from getting to the top.

So are people skills important?  Sometimes yes. But not all of the time. If these skills were all that essential, the marketing of our skills would not be a hellish nightmare.

This having been said, there are specific areas where people skills are absolutely critical, as was pointed out to me by my friend GK in personal correspondence.

“Smaller companies and companies in trouble are usually in a very weak situation with employees, investors, board members, and customers. In these situations, which is a huge percentage of actual situations faced, people skills are critical because the relationships are often all that is between a customer or employee leaving, or a board member going hostile. Of course, stellar results always trump everything, but that is not always under the manager’s or CEO’s control.” (emphasis mine AS)

“In big companies results matter, of course. However, what actually matters more is the perception of results, rather than the results. In a big company, managing P&L and spinning information takes a huge portion of senior manager’s time. The critical people that need to be influenced for this to be successful are not always in the direct line of the hierarchy. They are often finance people, other staff people etc. They will support those they like more than those they hate. Of course, they may support those they fear even more (see Machiavelli), but that may be more short term.” (emphasis mine AS)

To wrap things up, if consultants know how to properly position when and where people skills are important, and avoid preaching people skills as a religious doctrine, marketing the abstraction of soft skills may become easier.

 

 

 

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