Worst Practices

The mythology about best practices is that they universally improve every organization. The truth is more likely that organizations are so idiosyncratic that any practice born elsewhere probably needs tailoring before it can be imported. My old shoes are very comfortable for me, but they probably aren't for you.

Worst practices are different — they're almost universally disastrous. We know this because, sadly, nearly everyone tries them. Here's a short list of some worst practices.

• Provide only outdated equipment. Even better: make people share outdated equipment.
• For security, lock all portable computers to desks
• Never, ever train anybody
• Use training as a reward. Provide it only to those who need it least.
• To increase productivity, increase pressure
• Let acrimony persist until it's truly injurious
• Leave in place people who are clearly incapable of doing much of anything
• Assign blame
• Spend time defending yourself in case someone, someday decides to assign blame
• Take credit for work done by subordinates or colleagues
• Give credit to one person for what was a team effort, ignoring everyone else's contributions
• Kill the messenger: punish people who deliver bad news
• Kill the nonmessenger: after you get bad news, punish those who knew about it but didn't tell you because you have a reputation for killing the messenger
• Force consensus by shaming or punishing those few souls foolish enough to disagree with the "correct" position
• Force consensus without allowing time for sufficient discussion
• Make decisions autocratically even when there's time for consensus
• Have favorite subordinates who can do no wrong
• The worst thing about
  worst practices isn't their
  consequences; it's that we
  keep using them despite
  their consequencesHave troubled subordinates who can do no right, even when they do right
• As team owner, publicly castigate team members
• Publicly overrule a subordinate manager, citing information obtained from one of his or her subordinates
• "Sit in" on a subordinate's meeting unannounced
• Make the problem excessively complicated by raising herds of ancillary minor issues
• Angrily say things that hurt people, damaging the group's ability to collaborate
• Add new people to the team. Even better: do it in a way that raises questions about the abilities of incumbents
• "Temporarily" transfer some team member(s) to another effort
• Conduct "emergency" project reviews regularly
• Increase the budget without warning
• Decrease the budget
• Circulate rumors that maybe we'll be cutting the budget
• Tighten project scope to maintain schedule
• Use (faked) schedule urgency as a way of managing spending
• Remove or relax some requirements
• After work is well underway, add new requirements or tighten existing requirements
• Reassign some work from one team member to another
• Assign the same work to two people (or teams) without their knowing it
• Assign to one person work already completed by another
• Assign work to two people, together, without designating either one as lead

Count how many of these you've seen. Even scarier: count how many you've done.  Top    Next Issue

Are your projects always (or almost always) late and over budget? Are your project teams plagued by turnover, burnout, and high defect rates? Turn your culture around. Read 52 Tips for Leaders of Project-Oriented Organizations, filled with tips and techniques for organizational leaders. Order Now!

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Workplace Politics:

How to Get Promoted in Place

Do you think you're overdue for a promotion? Many of us do, judging by the number of Web pages that talk about promotions, getting promoted, or asking for promotions. What you do to get a promotion depends on what you're aiming for.

Impasses in Group Decision Making: III

In group decision making, impasses can develop. Some are related to the substance of the issue at hand. With some effort, we can usually resolve substantive impasses. But treating nonsubstantive impasses in the same way doesn't work. Here's why.

Conway's Law and Technical Debt

Conway's Law is an observation that the structures of systems we design tend to replicate our communication patterns. This tendency might also contribute to their tendency to accumulate what we now call technical debt.

An Introduction to Workplace Ostracism

We say that a person has been ostracized from a group when that person is ignored by the members of that group or excluded from participating in that group's activities, and when we might otherwise expect that person to be a member. Workplace ostracism can have expensive consequences for the enterprise.

On Ineffectual Leaders

When the leader of an important business unit is ineffectual, we need to make a change to protect the organization. Because termination can seem daunting, people often turn to one or more of a variety of other options. Those options have risks.

See also Workplace Politics for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming October 5: Downscoping Under Pressure: I

When projects overrun their budgets and/or schedules, we sometimes "downscope" to save time and money. The tactic can succeed — and fail. Three common anti-patterns involve politics, the sunk cost effect, and cognitive biases that distort estimates. Available here and by RSS on October 5.

And on October 12: Downscoping Under Pressure: II

We sometimes "downscope" projects to bring them back on budget and schedule when they're headed for overruns. Downscoping doesn't always work. Cognitive biases like the sunk cost effect and confirmation bias can distort decisions about how to downscope. Available here and by RSS on October 12.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrendbTtLLSVlUPPCNkAner@ChacthFxWKdRwnLylOCDoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info