Management by Intimidation

I recently read Comaford's Smart Tribes, a book that has become trendy in certain circles lately - and for a change, I have the sense that's a good thing.   While I don't expect many readers will get the message, anything that seeps in to help evolve management out of the industrial era and into the present age would be helpful.

I've likely mentioned before, perhaps several times, that management tactics are stuck in the Industrial era in which workers were unskilled drudges whose contribution was to do as they were told without thinking, and how this ill-concived methodology has been carried forward in firms that want, but fail, to be innovative.   Workers can be terrorized (threat of terminating the income on which his family depends is nothing less) into doing the will of management, but they cannot be terrorized into thinking innovatively, or thinking at all.

Much of this has to do with the processes of the human mind: any stimuli that is perceived as a threat gets an immediate reaction that includes very little intelligence.  While human beings do not have instincts in the sense that animals do, they do have stored procedures that they immediately fall upon when faced with a threatening situation, and they are more sophisticated in their threat-assessment algorithms.

Not only does this mean that any management directive that is backed by an "or else" threat receives an immediate and unintelligent response, but any situation perceived as being a problem is also categorized as a low-grade threat that gets a quick reaction - the first thing that comes to mind, based on patterns established by past experience in dealing with threats, is put into action without much consideration.    Neurologically, the activity all occurs in the limbic system, a part of the brain humans have in common with lesser species.  In a sense, it's entirely accurate to say that human beings behave like animals in dealing with threatening and stressful situations because the response does not give them access to the parts of the brain that are unique to humans.

In order to activity to take place in the frontal lobes - the distinctly human "thinking" parts of the brain - the threat-response algorithms must be bypassed.  If they are triggered, the stimulus and response never get further than the animalistic limbic system, and the intelligent mind can only be engaged after an action has been taken - hence the common question of "what was I thinking?" and the invariable answer that "I wasn't thinking."

The problem is not solved, not even partially, by traditional managers who seek to use traditional intimidation/terror tactics to motivate their subordinates to be innovative.   To be threatened into thinking is as absurd and contradictory as to be ordered not to follow orders.   It simply will not work.

What is necessary is an environment of opportunity-seeking rather than problem-solving, which is more than a matter of cleverly rephrasing a problem as an opportunity, but a significant shift for an organization.  It is a change not only in tactics, and not only in strategy, but in culture.

And with that in mind, I think Comaford is definitely onto something.   I'm not ready to jump on the "smart tribes" bandwagon after having read her book because there's a little too much cheerleading and a little too much junk-science for my taste - but that doesn't mean she's not heading in the right direction and that exposure to her theory of management would be harmful.  Quite the opposite.   Perhaps the best way to frame it is to say that it's good but in need of further consideration and refinement.