In the Age of Lean and Mean
Peter de Jager is a provocative Speaker, Writer and Consultant. His primary focus in on how we manage change, technology and the future.
In addition to speaking at conferences worldwide, he's also writen monthly columns for CIO Magazine and Computerworld Canada.
His goal is always to question what we think is so, and in so doing perhaps open up new opportunities.
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Common courtesy has neither a place, nor a value, in the modern organization. I find it
unlikely that any reader will resonate warmly to that opening statement. I know that as I wrote it, I felt as if I was unfairly overstating the situation, yet I’m becoming convinced it has become a
core value in almost all organizations.
We usually think of things like “Core Values” and “Best Practices” as positive attributes of organizational culture. Yet logically, there are also negative organizational “Core Values” and “Worst Practices”. Spending some time to examine these, with the intent of highlighting their destructive aspects, in the hopes of alleviating them, is
hopefully a productive use of our time.
What possible behaviour, repeated often enough and widely enough, could support the seemingly
outrageous notion that, “Common courtesy has neither a place, nor a value, in the modern organization”, has become a common core value?
First some background, I do a lot of work with H.A.P.P.E.N (www.happen.ca) and E.A.R.N.
(www.earnworks.org). Both of these groups are involved with helping
folks help themselves to make the transition from one place of employment to another. The phrase used is that those who use these services are “between successes”; the harsh reality is that they’re unemployed and looking for work.
All of us who’ve been out of work, (and that does, or will apply to all of us, either in the past or certainly in the future) know that the job hunt is stressful. Not knowing when we’ll land the next position is a constant worry. Speaking plainly, the stress is enough to break up some relationships and in rare cases it leads to suicide. Even when people don’t crumble under the strain, the burden of unemployment is a heavy one.
Those in transition quickly learn a few cold facts about this age of the lean and mean organization.
Fact 1: They will rarely, if ever, receive a response, not even a form letter, to the dozens, if not hundreds of resumes they sent out in response to newspaper advertisements. Many years ago, a letter of acknowledgement was the norm. It was often a form letter, but it was recognition that
at least the resume was received.
The organizational response is undoubtedly, that it would cost thousands of dollars to respond to the thousands of resumes they receive after an ad is published. They are undoubtedly correct, it would indeed cost money to be courteous and acknowledge receipt of resumes they requested. The cost of courtesy is indeed ‘high’.
Fact 2: Even if they do make it to the short list of potential candidates, after jumping through a series of interview hoops, they should not hold their breath waiting for the final decision. Often it will require that they wait in growing frustration
until they can bear the pressure of suspense no more, and they phone their potential employer – several times – because their messages are not returned – until they happen by chance to get the person on the phone and they’re told, “Oh yes, sorry about that. The job went to another candidate.”
One could argue, and many do, that the cost of responding to each and every resume is prohibitive ,and far too high a price to pay for mere gesture of courtesy, but when we get down to the short list of candidates, that argument becomes very weak indeed. What does it cost to send out a personalized letter of rejection to the three or four finalists? Or better yet to phone each of them? Or have we arrived at the point where common courtesy really does have neither a place nor a value in our organizations?
The cost of courtesy is one reason for not getting back to people who are anxiously sitting by the phone, waiting for our call. There is another possible reason for not calling a candidate who didn’t get the position. We don’t call because we have an aversion to delivering bad news. We’d rather ignore the fact that someone is waiting to know if they can stop the conflicting dual tasks of hoping and worrying,
because we don’t care enough to be courteous.
I’m not sure which of these reasons is the least desirable. People who can’t deliver bad news have no place in any organization as managers. Organizations that don’t have enough common courtesy to contact a short listed candidate to let them know to continue their job search don’t have a soul and can’t honestly say they treat people well.
Regardless of which is the lesser evil, a lack of common courtesy has unfortunately become a common core value. It’s solvable of course, all we have to do is follow Gandhi’s advice, become the change we want to see in the world.
© 2006 Peter de Jager, Peter is passionate about management practices, how to fix them when they’re broken and to how to reinforce them when they aren’t.
You can share your stories with
him at
Pdejager@technobility.com
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