Mind The Props

I read an evaluator’s report of an organization years ago in which a fairly senior officer was reported to have complained of feeling like the boss’ ‘walking stick’. At the time I found the comparison unusual but on reflection it didn’t take a whole lot to appreciate how apt an analogy it is to some relationships in organizations.

Walking sticks are ordinarily supports, aids, facilitators, enablers, help, props. Made tough to go the long haul without breaking. With them we can manage a respectable posture and as long as that posture is impossible or difficult without the walking stick, we lean on them. They are also handy in many ways; reaching at things otherwise out of reach, warding off danger, dealing out threats and so on. And not surprisingly as soon as a sense of stability and security is attained the props are discarded without a thought; dropped somewhere out of sight though within reach, just in case they are needed. Stretching this idea of walking sticks to the organizational setting it is easy I should think, to find a few among our fellow workers and even within ourselves.  

Work relations that leave others feeling used and ignored or dis-empowered like the officer in the evaluation report are problematic to say the least. This is so because the feeling of disenchantment is often quickly spread through an entire organization especially when it emanates from a senior person with a wide scope of responsibility or someone who is otherwise central to an organization’s business. The sad thing is that the very reason why people turn out as walking sticks is because they often bring (high) value to another’s job or output. That this fact is seldom acknowledged, celebrated or rewarded is what ultimately leads to embitterment. So how do we treat the people who prop us up and help us shine? 

A comment by an employee during an organization’s end of year review meeting recently provides an example of the challenge. In the meeting some staff had commented that the organization’s continued survival was attributable to a few star employees.  The comment, indifferent to the contributions of others in the organization and not considering the environment in which it was being made (a meeting of all staff of the organization), was met with sharp resentment by another employee during a break out session. The point made was simply that the “star officers” were aided in diverse ways by the contributions of others who were not in the fore-front of affairs and who could not claim the achievements as their own. The organization’s achievements were therefore that of the whole or at the very least a few more employees’ and it was a shame not to acknowledge that.

No doubt there are several little ways to acknowledge the people who contribute to our collective successes and sometimes who really make things happen in organizations. I share a couple;

Suppose a co-worker suggests an idea or roadmap for work in a conversation. The idea probably gets refined along the way within formal processes and leads to an important organizational strategy. It does not hurt to make reference to the one whose original idea it was. And if a committee of sorts is to work with that idea, it may help to include this originator in the committee with a central role. If a presentation of the idea is to be made to a senior level group, it may be valuable to help the originator of the idea to introduce it to them. And for the love of ourselves, it is a bad idea to change the idea of another person without reference to the person that yielded the idea to us in the first place!

Again, on a daily basis a junior employee collects and feeds information to a superior who uses this as basis for analysis and high powered presentations lets say. Do we wonder what this junior officer thinks about the use to which this information is made and what valuable insights one might get from such a person if only we asked? If we did, it might open up opportunity to enrich an employee’s job. 

The above suggestions and many more that others may have do not actually resolve what to me is the more fundamental reason why it is easier in some environments rather than others for people to become “walking sticks” in organizations. It seems to me that the challenge transcends the need for recognition and acknowledgement of staff contributions to enhancing job autonomy, responsibilities and authority generally in order that an employee can take pride in delivering a meaningful job in and of itself.  Let’s face it when a person’s contribution only manifests or yields dividends within the context of another person’s job or a person is consistently having to be the ‘walking stick” of another, there’s at least one of two problems present – a structural dis-articulation of the organization or a capacity deficiency.