Sometimes organizations or their leaders confront problems over which they have little control. For instance, a manager might want a supplier offshore to deliver something right after an important national holiday. Even if the supplier agrees, the holiday might cause delays, because some employees might take extra days off. To acknowledge this risk is to accept the larger reality of the limits of the manager's control. The manager cannot control the behavior of the supplier's employees.

American Airlines Flight 191, moments before its crash near O'Hare Airport in Chicago in 1979. The crash was due, in part, to engine strut failure caused by use of an unapproved engine maintenance procedure. The mandated procedure assumed that the engine would be removed first, and then the pylon. By removing them together, as a unit, the airline reduced the total effort required, but the procedure caused stresses on the pylon. (See FAA animation) Those stresses initiated a gradual cracking process, which eventually led to the accident. Subsequent inspections of other aircraft that had been subjected to the procedure uncovered nine other cracked engine mounts. Photo courtesy U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.
Recognizing these limits can be difficult, because organizational leaders have day-to-day experiences that demonstrate their substantial power. Those experiences can obscure the reality of limited power, causing those leaders to make decisions that defy reality.
Reality does constrain even those with organizational power. Here are some of the forces of reality that we simply must accept.
- Physical law
- Leaders sometimes create expectations or make demands that cause the led to attempt to violate laws of Nature. For instance, in 1979, American Airlines Flight 191 crashed on takeoff as a result, in part, of engine strut failure due to stress cracks created by using an unapproved maintenance procedure. 271 people died.
- Those who create environments that encourage people unknowingly to try to circumvent physical law could be setting themselves up for higher turnover, degraded morale, ridicule, or criminal prosecution.
- Societal and cultural norms
- Requiring work schedules that conflict with holidays, major sporting events or other observances, whether or not they have legal status, can cause staff to conceal their absences, or worse, to report for work distracted, exhausted, or otherwise impaired.
- The cultural constraints of our societies are far more influential than anything the organization might try to assert.
- Limits of human performance
- From time to time, managers require substandard working conditions, work hours in excess of the norm, or suspension of vacation allowances. As short-term measures, they might be understandable and endurable. But when they become standard requirements of the job,The cultural constraints of our
societies are far more influential
than anything the organization
might try to assert work quality degrades, rework rates increase, and turnover becomes inevitable. - In most cases, requiring inhuman conditions or excessive hours as a way of reducing costs or circumventing regulations is shortsighted. These practices are toxic to the organization and cause the most capable people to leave.
- Economic forces
- If working conditions are below the norm, or compensation is below the norm, the quality of the work force eventually declines below the norm.
- The cost of managing an inferior work force is usually higher than the norm. Leaders get to choose: spend money on the work force and working conditions, or spend money dealing with a resistive workforce, higher turnover and output quality issues. You can't minimize the costs of both.
Dealing with the world as it is, rather than the world as we would have it be, is the easiest path to success. On what path is your organization? Top
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Related articles
More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
An Emergency Toolkit
- You've just had some bad news at work, and you're angry or really upset. Maybe you feel like the target
of a vicious insult or the victim of a serious injustice. You have work to do, and you want to respond,
but you must first regain your composure. What can you do to calm down and start feeling better?
Four Popular Ways to Mismanage Layoffs: II
- Staff reduction is needed when expenses overtake revenue. But when layoffs are misused, or used too
late, they can harm the organization more than they help. Here's Part II of an exploration of four common
patterns of mismanagement, and some suggestions for those managers and other employees who recognize
the patterns in their own companies.
Management Debt: I
- Management debt, like technical debt, arises when we choose paths — usually the lowest-cost paths
— that lead to recurring costs that are typically higher than alternatives. Why do we take on
management debt? How can we pay it down?
How to Get Out of Firefighting Mode: I
- When new problems pop up one after the other, we describe our response as "firefighting."
We move from fire to fire, putting out flames. How can we end the madness?
Getting Value from Involuntary Seminars
- Whatever your organizational role, from time to time you might find yourself attending seminars or presentations
involuntarily. The value you derive from these "opportunities" depends as much on you as on
the presenter.
See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Managing Your Boss for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming February 8: Kerfuffles That Seem Like Something More
- Much of what we regard as political conflict is a series of squabbles commonly called kerfuffles. They captivate us while they're underway, but after a month or two they're forgotten. Why do they happen? Why do they persist? Available here and by RSS on February 8.
And on February 15: Four Razors for Organizational Behavior
- Deviant organizational behavior can harm the people and the organization. In choosing responses, we consider what drives the perpetrators. Considering Malice, Incompetence, Ignorance, and Greed, we can devise four guidelines for making these choices. Available here and by RSS on February 15.
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