simplerich

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card is almost certainly in the top 3 most influential books I’ve read. I discover something new that I didn’t know I’d incorporated into how I do things every time I read it or, in this most recent case… listen to it. The most recent quote to hit me while I was driving down the road listening to Ender’s Game on audiobook follows:

“Listen, Ender, commanders have just as much authority as you let them have. The more you obey them, the more power they have over you.“

The company I work for changed ownership a couple times over the past few years and has settled down finally and things are going pretty well generally speaking. During the past 18 months or so though, while the company was being restructured and ownership was settling in there was a LOT of political maneuvering. There were armys of people in the central office jockying for power, and calling the field identifying themselves as “Mongo from corporate…” and conjuring with that name expecting obedience from all who answered. The thing is/was… they didn’t really have the power they were reaching for.

They wanted the power, but looking at organizational charts and chains of command they weren’t even close to as important as they wanted to be. As soon as people started jumping when they called though. As soon as they started being obeyed they had the power over the people who obeyed them. Not only that… the people who were doing what they were told got in the habit of jumping when somebody called them and told them to jump. Obedience is 95% habit after the first time. Ask the Dog Whisperer if it’s true.

Now, I’m not saying they didn’t need the things they were asking for, and we’re one company working toward the same goal so it’s not a case of my saying that I would automatically ignore them when they called to tell me to do something. I would, however, send the things they asked for to the people that actually needed it instead of to the gatekeeper who was asking for it. If Mongo wants to know how many widgets I have in stock for Roy and could I just drop everything and count those for Roy right away… Well… there’s a very fine chance that I’ll be on the phone with Roy asking what Roy’s deadline is, and if he really wants the count or not and when. Then, when it’s done I’ll send it to Roy. More often than not, Mongo wasn’t speaking for Roy. Mongo was building a case against someone else and was preparing to blindside them by going to Roy with it.

Political in-fighting is annoying in a company. It’s never helpful, doesn’t increase profit, morale, efficiency, or anything good. What it does is waste time. The biggest way I’ve found to avoid it is to recognize who is in charge, who is pretending to be in charge, and who while in charge by title, is absolutely hopeless and not in charge of anything at all. So, don’t fight. If Mongo wants to fight you for perceived power let Mongo fight by himself. As soon as I engage Mongo I’m giving credit to him. I’m admitting he’s got a claim. It’s like arguing with a 3 year old. You just wouldn’t do it. So why argue with someone who hasn’t got a point to make, who hasn’t got any authority or power but is grasping for it? It’s what 3 year olds do when they’re denied something. They fight, scream, kick, and cry. So, ignore it. Don’t encourage it. Don’t feed it. Don’t acquiesce to it. Let them have their little fit and you, you float above it as serene as foam on a stormy sea. All the crashing waves and roiling water is beneath you while you ride on top, above it all, and not stinking of low-tide and in-fighting.

That being said, how can YOU use this as a manager? Well, the part where obedience is mostly habit? That’s very easy to use to your advantage. First day on the job as a new manager might not be the day to try and get the whole crew to rip everything off the walls and paint the store. Maybe that’s the day to start by dusting and cleaning the product… starting small, getting them in the habit of saying yes, paves the way for big projects later being easier to say yes to.

Nature abhors a vacuum and so do power structures. I once worked for a small mom and pop outfit whose owner/manager was absentee. He wasn’t to be bothered with the day to day so lots and lots of decisions were just deferred because the manager wasn’t there to make them. After being there a while as a front-liner I realized that the manager wasn’t temporarily gone, this was long term. He didn’t care at all. His shift managers were supposed to hold it together and they didn’t care because why should they? He didn’t. So we were spiraling slowly downward. I didn’t particularly love the job, but it was close to home, and my car was busted so I wanted it to be there for a while longer.

I started making the decisions and doing the things that other people weren’t. I had no authority to do so, and I had no right to do so. Instead of getting in trouble I got more work. I soon had the crew looking to me for guidance and I was the most junior person there. I just was the one willing to DO something. I’d filled the power vacuum. Not because I wanted the power, but because I wanted the job. I wanted things to run smoothly, and things run better when someone cares; when there’s someone making decisions. The shift managers didn’t care because well, they didn’t care. I was doing their work for them — who are they to rock the boat? I stayed at that place long enough to get hired somewhere better, and I got my car fixed using the money from the place. It closed six months after I left. Nature and power structures abhor a vacuum. If nobody steps up it will fall down.

If you like science fiction at all and haven’t read Ender’s Game lately you should. It’s one of my top five favorite books.

The Ender’s Game & Management? by Rich Griffith, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.