Tweet

BOOK REVIEW: The Set-Up-To-Fail Syndrome: How Good Managers Cause Great People to Fail (By Jean-François Manzoni & Jean-Louis Barsoux, Harvard Business School Press, 2002, ISSBN #0-87584-949-0)

Written by: Ian Cook

Article Overview: Totally unaware, managers can become complicit in the failure of an employee. Describes the negative self-fulfilling cycle where an employee's mistake or lapse begins to shape his/her manager's overall negative view of him/her. In turn, the manager starts treating the employee as if they fit that image of a poor performer. The employee lives up (down?) to those expectation and and the relationship spirals down and down. The book offers some suggestions for managers who see the situation in action and want to "crack the syndrome."

BOOK REVIEW: The Set-Up-To-Fail Syndrome: How Good Managers Cause Great People to Fail (By Jean-François Manzoni & Jean-Louis Barsoux, Harvard Business School Press, 2002, ISSBN #0-87584-949-0)

Does this cycle sound familiar to you?

1. An employee misses a deadline or messes up in some way.
2. You begin to have doubts about him (or her).
3. Meaning well, you start closely managing him.
4. The employee thinks you don’t trust him, loses self-confidence and harbors resentment.
5. The employee’s performance slips and he minimizes contact with you.
6. You see this as validating your initial concerns.
7. Hence, you increase your vigilance, to the point of micro-managing him.
8. And so the cycle continues to spiral downward...

This is what the authors call the “set-up-to-fail syndrome.” It is a (sometime dramatic) process that occurs every day in our organizations. Yet, it is costly because it ends up killing the potential contribution of what are, in most cases, good employees. The authors’ fifteen years of research reveals that the syndrome is a common pattern among managers.

Here a few highlights of what they found:

• A manager typically has two groups of employees in his (or her) mind: the in-group (who he perceives as his stronger performers) and the out-group (perceived weaker performers who are not really making the grade).
• He can very quickly (within mere days) label an employee as a strong or weak performer.
• He rarely realizes that he has done this.
• Once a label emerges in the boss’s mind, it is extremely hard to change it.
• When an employee performs poorly, the boss typically assumes it is the employee’s fault entirely.
• The boss behaves differently towards members of the in-group and the out-group.
• Bosses tend to think poor performance persists in spite of their best efforts to coach; often it persists because of their “best efforts.”

The thesis of this book is that bosses are very often complicit in the weak performance of their people. Managers need to recognize and counteract their tendency to, in fact, make things worse for their weak performers.

Just how do managers make things worse? Once they begin to lose trust and confidence in an employee’s ability and/or willingness to perform, here is the behavior you often see:

• Giving unsolicited advice to the employee about his performance
• Directions only thinly disguised as suggestions. The employee “gets” this, however.
• Not asking for the employee’s input and disregarding ideas he/she offers
• Readily pointing out where the employee is falling short in performance
• Responding to any employee’s success skeptically (“I don’t know how you managed that.”)
• Harsher, more dismissive tone than is used with the better performers

Some of you who have read widely in management will recognize a connection between the Self-fulfilling Prophecy and the “Pygmalion” effect, here a negative Pygmalion effect. The low expectations of the boss towards an employee are transmitted, often unconsciously, to the employee. The employee then lives up (or, should we say, down) to those expectations and gives an accordingly low level of performance.

What always amazes me are those situations I have encountered with clients where a weaker performing employee is transferred to a new boss–a positive and self-aware manager–and that same employee’s performance takes off. Someone with a reputation for not producing becomes, almost overnight, a star!

Because the authors’ studies found the set-up-to-fail syndrome to be so widespread, I think it behooves us to ask ourselves, two questions: “Which of my staff have I mentally labeled as disloyal, having a bad attitude, insensitive, lazy, unintelligent, unenthusiastic?” and “Does this syndrome apply to me?”

Now, if the answer is, “Yes, it does,” what can you do? How can you turn things around with a weaker performer without giving any ground on your performance expectations? First of all, don’t expect the employee to come to you about the management style she is experiencing from you. Even if she wants to, she probably doesn’t feel it is a safe thing to do. Secondly, depending on how far your relationship has deteriorated, be prepared for what might be a difficult encounter.

The book offers a series of ideas for what it calls “cracking the syndrome,” turning a poor performance situation around without having to move to discipline or termination. These include some questions to ask yourself as you analyze the history and current state of your relationship with the weaker performer. They also include accepting the possibility that you may be wrong about their actual performance or perhaps right about it but there are legitimate reasons. And you may be one of those reasons!

But will the employee be receptive to your feedback, even if she views the outcome of your discussion as unfavorable? She will be, say the authors, if she sees the process as fair. “Fair” means that her views were heard, you were consistent, reasonable and fact-based in your decision, and you came across as genuine.

This book is an important one for managers because it shines a light on what we often just don’t see: how we put the weaker performer in a negative “box” in our mind and then interact with them in a way that makes it next to impossible for him to climb out of that mental box. We perpetuate the very weak performance we so sincerely want to turn around:

The weaker performer...

• Asks for feedback and advice, and we regard it as insecurity or lack of initiative.
• Works long hours and we see a slow worker who can’t prioritize.
• Offers to run an errand for us and we interpret it as bootlicking.
• Compliments or thanks us for something and we see a brownnoser.

Do we see our better employees in the same light when they do these things? I think not.

Related Articles
  The Article that became the Book: Tips for gaining Quick and Effective Knowledge using Breadth and Depth
  The Coach's Playbook
  Lessons from the Harvard Recruitment Process
  What They Now Are Teaching MBAs at BSchools According to Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
  Successful People are Self-Taught…ALWAYS!

Article Tags: feedback, jean francois manzoni, jean louis barsoux, leadership, management, poor performer, set up to fail syndrome
Referred by: http://upwardaction.com



Related Forum Posts
Re: 10 Reasons Who Startups Fail & Book Recommendations - Great post,but please edit the headline. I presume it is "10 Reasons Why Startups Fail & Book Recommendation
Re: What inspires you? - Another inspiring thing is which I really likes "Most People Fail because, their dreams are small". Most people like to engage with something or teh other. If they can truly listen to their inner voice and work towards achieving it, then you can see "miracle in action". So, big changes happen, when you think BIG. If you cannot to think BIG, you cannot do BIG things too. Robert
Favourite Business Books - The November PROFIT magazine looks at the favourite business books of Canada's most successful entrepreneurs. The top 4 are: 1) Good to Great by Jim Collins 2) The E-Myth by Michael Gerber 3) Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne 4) How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Re: The Best Method for Online Marketing - In order to write a press release, you must determine the subject of your story. It can be about an event that affects your industry, or it can be about a change in your company that will affect your customer base. Press releases are in all actuality ‘cookie cutter’. Once you get the hang of writing them, all you have to do is fill in the blanks. Press releases conform to an established format.
Contingency Planning and Disaster Recovery: A Small Business - Contingency Planning and Disaster Recovery: A Small Business Guide Donna R. Childs, Stefan Dietrich 2002 "Among the countless tragic lessons of 9/11, an overlooked but important discovery was the lack of preparedness among small and midsized businesses for responding to disaster. While most of the media attention was naturally devoted to...., the very existence of thousands of small businesses was determined by whether or not they had adequate insurance, sufficient technological support, and viable disaster contingency plans." (People who live in hurricane prone areas need this as well...and who knows when a fire might not strike...) Table of Contents 1. Preparation 2. Response 3. Recovery 4. SAmple IT Solutions Basic safety practices Okay, the TOC isn't [i:2fu76idt]too [/i:2fu76idt]helpful, but there's lots of valuable info in this book, as to ensure that [i:2fu76idt]your [/i:2fu76idt]losses won't be catastrophic. How people cope with suddenly seeing their homes and all their possessions gone, what kinds of insurance to get, etc. etc.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Adapting to Technology and the Internet

Leading with Discernment

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.