Twenty-five years was a long time to witness the good and bad transactions in the organization. Really, work was the easier part of the UN career, if you had the right experience and qualifications for the job, then you ought to be able to know it like the lines on your palm. The hard part then is managing the team, your staff. However, what do you do when others do not play a fair management game? This essay is about a serious people problem issue, the issue of wrong recognition.
Manager X has a staff member who is hard to motivate and steer in the right direction. The real problem though is the staff member is angry, unfriendly and has a bad attitude. You might think that the staff member ought to correct or separate years ago, but instead the individual succeed to a host of opportunities in various divisions and offices that made him or her look fabulous and on paper showed that this individual was making a great contribution to the organization. Matter of fact, this individual was just a problem pushed around by passing the headache to someone else. Rather than being a good manager, this manager figures out a way to push the problem to someone else. Pity then the manager that inherits a problem staff member who is good on paper. When this happens, it really de-motivates the good people. Part of the problem is that the manager who up-skills a problem employee on paper is derelict in facing up to be a manager, or plainly put, has no backbone to deal with the problem. There have been known cases where senior staff would give glorious PER’s to other senior staff in the field, but only to come to New York and paint a negative picture of those staff. Unfortunately, the mismatch between the verbal statements and the written statements remain unqualified, and efforts by some HR staff to point these inadequacies hit a wall so not to cause embarrassments to senior field colleagues. The other issue also in the UN is that the problem staff member may have connections to senior management or belong to a valued donor. Therefore, managers go on giving this bad employee some public recognition and the vicious cycle continues unabated. One manager buys peace and quiet and sells to the other a human problem. From a business point, these wrong recognitions pose a tremendous cost to the organization.
One of the biggest problems in the UN system is that there is no easy way to reward staff other than by promotion. Nevertheless, the litmus test is that there are too many qualified people chasing after too few jobs and by sticking with the UN and waiting for a UN pension some day and a better place to live, UN employees just stay on and on until death or retirement, whichever comes first. Private business companies have a plethora of perquisites, both financial and not financial as a way of rewarding employees. Academic studies have shown that financial benefits actually disintegrate in value over time, what sticks are the non-financial benefits. Unfortunately, the UN has failed in finding ways of rewarding employees without giving promotion. Promotion to keep a staff member happy is a recognition tool.
Overall people are good, thus from a population of people, there will be a few bad ones, like the problem staff member described above. Thus, if you take any UN agency, overall one can conclude that the staff is an asset. If we step out of the UN environment for a moment, we can see that staff in private organization enjoys greater mobility. In the old days, the dream career of any staff member in the private sector was to have a long career with one company, and managers had the difficult job of keeping the staff loyal, motivated and productive throughout their careers. However, with globalization and outsourcing to cheaper locations, thousands upon thousands of jobs are lost in industrialized countries, killing the prospects of a long dream career. Perhaps, one could say that the early 1990’s saw the death of the long career prospect in the outer UN environment. In the UN environment, a permanent contract is an ugly word these days. To theoretic astonish of human relations, the attitudes of staff has changed as well. Staff has changed their motivations to fit these new realities.
A new order has emerged in the value systems of staff. Personal fulfillment is becoming more important than personal wealth for staff of all organizations. Today people are searching for opportunities that engage their spirits ignite their souls and balance their lives. Today, staff demands that at least their jobs be interesting and challenging. The biggest mumbles I have heard among staff are not about their salary or level in the organization but the need for recognition and job satisfaction. Parents that have closely reared their children know how much pleased a child is when that child is appreciated. Adults, are the same, they are children when it comes to appreciation, but the only difference is that they have advanced skills. Again, child caregivers know how much a child wants independence, to try doing something without parental help. Again, adults are the same; they demand greater independence, autonomy, and freedom from bureaucracy. Countless books and magazine articles report the hordes of great people that leave organizations because they are tired of feeling fenced by endless policies and procedures. Corporate politics exhausts staff. However, here, we are talking about staff that has the privilege to be mobile. When it comes to UN staff, there is no such mobility. Staff stays with the organization because they must have a job and have to put up with an environment they may not like. The challenge for managers in the UN to motivate staff and for staff to find job satisfaction is greater than in the private sector.
Two simple ways that Wipro’s team in Bangalore, India has found to motivate staff is worthy of report. Each morning, the manager starts the day in the “war zone” congratulating team members on their performance and getting suggestions on how to improve performance. Each week there is a prize cake for the best performer. Is there big money involved in these two simple ways, giving praise for a job well done and the cost of a cake? The cost of the cake is just a few rupees, but the cost of the recognition is priceless.
Even Jack and Suzy Welch (JackWelch is the former chief of GE) speak of four motivational tools that are non-monetary. The first thing they say is recognition. When an individual or team does something notable, announce it and glorify it publicly and give due awards. The second tool is celebration. Celebrating victories keeps people engaged - see the Wipro example above. The third motivation tool is focusing always on the mission. Understandably, even bosses lose track of the mission when they are preoccupied with the daily grind of going to work and putting out fires most of the time. The final motivational tool put forth by the dual (Jack and Suzy) are balancing achievement and challenge. What this means is that people are motivated when they feel at the top of the mountain and if they are still climbing, that is still having a challenge.
When management plays a fair game, all tasks of human resources becomes an easier job, no doubt about it. Well, I think I have delivered a message; staff needs the right recognition to excel. However, passing along the wrong recognition is also detrimental to those undeserving and deserving as well.
NOTE: Also, please read my other essay on Appreciation Boosts Motivation posted on this web log on February 12, 2006
Sources for this essay: My own personal knowledge and observances plus knowledge acquired from multiple issues of the Harvard Business Review; Wall Street Journal; Business Week; Economist; Financial Management, UK and several leading books on management and human relations.
A good read: Winning (Harper Collins 2005) by Jack and Suzy Welch.
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