9 ms·

The Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome (1998)

yamrzou 3y ago
https://archive.is/FThP1 https://archive.is/FThP1
Loughla 3y ago
I am always afraid that I'm doing this with my subordinates. Probably to a fault. So I treat everything as a learning experience. Recap anything and everything that went right or wrong and talk it out. What did we do well, what could have been done better. All of that. The problem only comes when you run into someone who is a constant victim. Any negative feedback immediately becomes someone else's fault. Any perceived injustice is immediately a huge deal. I do not know how to work with that type of person. If they do not see their faults, either professional or personal, it's hard for me to help. Any suggestions?
- itopaloglu83 3y ago
  I believe Sun Tzu demonstrated it with 180 concubines. He first explains the process. Takes the blame on himself if the instructions were not clear. When the failure continues, he warns. And if it continues again, he punishes. https://titusng.com/2013/03/04/the-test-of-sun-tzus-art-of-war-on-concubines/ https://titusng.com/2013/03/04/the-test-of-sun-tzus-art-of-w...
  - rrr_oh_man 3y ago
    "Behead middle management"
- readthenotes1 3y ago
  I was always suspicious of all the 4-factor personality tests I was exposed to in the corporate world because it seemed to me they were glossy but not very helpful. Then I found out about OCEAN and realized the 4 factor tests were always avoiding the only one that mattered: Neuroticism. (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) https://www.thelifedoctor.org/the-narcissist-s-prayer https://www.thelifedoctor.org/the-narcissist-s-prayer While it is unlikely that the uncoachable are full blown narcissists, those employees probably need a lot of counseling to overcome whatever life experiences that taught them corrective feedback is a personal attack.
  - refulgentis 3y ago
    The jump from Neuroticism to Narcissist confused me. I'm a bit wary of anything touching on narcissism, there was a big jump in people who loved talking about their narcissist ex the past 2-3 years. (the cousins of body language doctors via true crime YouTube)
    - graemep 3y ago
      > The jump from Neuroticism to Narcissist confused me. Me too > I'm a bit wary of anything touching on narcissism, there was a big jump in people who loved talking about their narcissist ex the past 2-3 years. The term narcissist maybe overused, but a lot of us also learned to recognise it in recent years. It is a fairly common behaviour, and people can have narcissistic traits without having clinical NPD. Just because some people claim their ex was narcissistic without adequate justification, that does not mean there are not also many who are right when they say it. I think being forced into being confined with people during lockdowns also made people realise what they were putting up with. Because it is so different from how reasonable people behave, and it is associated with abusive behaviour, it can be hard to figure out what is going on. A bigger problem IMO is the overuse of "gaslighting" which dilutes its meaning and makes it harder to clearly describe the actual behaviour.
      - ambicapter 3y ago
        > a lot of us also learned to recognise it in recent years [Citation Needed] What triggered this large-scale awakening?
    - readthenotes1 3y ago
      Try giving corrective direction to a narcissist and see how emotionally stable they are...
  - andrewflnr 3y ago
    Weird that you'd say neuroticism is the "only one that mattered". I'm more inclined to believe that for conscientiousness. I gather it's strongly correlated with life outcomes.
- arbitrage 3y ago
  Do you talk with them, or talk at them? Are you the only one giving feedback? What feedback do you get from the employee you've been failing to connect with?
- thereisnospork 3y ago
  An opinion: I would say that they are what they are, and that people need to want to be helped. To me that would be someone to delegate work to that is clearly within their competencies but which is not 'growth work' that would requisite [negative] feedback. The question then becomes whether or not they remain an asset under those limitations. If they are not an asset to the team/company, then I would be inclined to proceed down the 'improve or else' path, starting of course with informal but frank conversations / formal reviews about the specific shortcomings, with specific examples and specific ways similar situations should be handled in the future[0]. Otherwise it gets muddier, because there is conflicting interest between a 'happy' status quo where his/her growth is going to be kneecapped vs. potentially demoralizing them trying to force them to grow. Imo all you can really do there is be upfront at 1-on-1's and formal reviews. A final point is that this behavior is not likely lost on the rest of the team: regardless of how the 'offender' is handled it is important to not let things fester. I've been part of more than one group where morale was wrecked because management was too concerned with being 'nice' to move on from problematic persons. [0]Specifics are key here, not just for them but for you: if you can't distill down the desired corrections into actionables your subordinates aren't going to be able to either.
  - caseyy 3y ago
    Could be risky to put a person known for victimizing themselves on the spot. That can even blow up in ways not limited to the company. I do agree with the sentiment of addressing things head-on, but these employees can be very delicate. This is the only type of employee I handle with kid gloves.
- caseyy 3y ago
  I’ve learned to deal with this kind of employee. The root cause is often insecurity so that’s what needs to be dealt with. Everything else may be a red herring. 1. Active listen to everything they say, even if it’s their unique perception of things. Do not challenge them, repeat what they said sometimes to make them feel smart, laugh at all the jokes, make them feel heard. You can acknowledge what they say and still not agree with them. Say “that must feel hard”, “that sounds disappointing”, “I can see you’re putting in a lot of effort” — acknowledge the feelings and generally true things (most people put effort into their work), not the minute facts if you think they could be wrong. 2. Give them a lot of praise and thanks, but be genuine. Don't make up praise, just turn up the positive feedback and turn down the negative. Basically, give this person 10% of the most important negative feedback only and 90% of the most important positive feedback. 3. Give them autonomy and trust. Take them off the critical path so they don’t have any real deadlines if you are worried about their performance, there is always backlog. Give them a simple project and trust them completely with the execution. Have 1:1s sometimes to give very very gentle guidance - “what do you think about X?” “What are some alternatives to Y?” “I read this article about Z, why don’t you have a look?” 4. Be friendly to them. Communicate a lot and informally, don’t be formal or involve many people in the communication. Focus on the frequency of the communication. There are some other tips in a book about building professional friendships called The Like Switch. 5. Increase bus factor, these people sometimes still leave unexpectedly. Someone might say something about them publicly or privately, or there will be some perceived slight against them and they will feel victimized. 6. Over time, you can gradually bring such a person back to the critical path and show them “the way” of being secure in the workplace by example. 7. Don’t talk negatively about this person behind their back, even if you usually share your work frustrations with work friends and even the small stuff (“X never washes his mug in the sink, I’m constantly washing up after him” — not even benign remarks like that). If it comes out, that will undo all of your hard work building up this employee. If it doesn’t, but other people learn about this person’s traits, then they might say something and that could turn into a significant problem, even leading to this person leaving because of a perceived slight. Also, protect yourself. Speak to your own manager (but only them) about this person candidly when you are asked. Say that they tend to view themselves as a victim and they’re not very responsive to feedback, but that you are taking steps A, B, C and D, and that hopefully you’re seeing progress, like that they are less timid with you, they have fewer conflicts in the team, etc. Such a person may go to your manager and stir things up if they feel like they’re victimized by you. While it may be true that this person is victimized by basically everyone from time to time, some headaches can still come to you. So make sure your manager can back you up. The truth and a little bit of time is the best antidote to this type of person if they mean harm to you. Anyways, they are not bad people, they just slipped into the victim mentality or maybe were raised that way. You can help them rebuild their self-esteem and stop seeing themselves as a victim if you must or want to. It’s probably the most challenging employee to manage though, so expect turbulence. But sometimes we don’t choose who we manage, and also, this person probably has many other great qualities which may make them very successful if they can overcome the victimhood. This works in my own practice, but it’s definitely a delicate situation.
- GoToRO 3y ago
  Why do you care so much about their faults? How do you know those are really faults, maybe it's just your own perception?
  - lazide 3y ago
    As a manager, your responsibility is to make something work by managing the people assigned to it. If the situation isn't working, either the thing itself needs to change (rarely possible in many situations), or the person needs to change, or there needs to be a different person there. It is a fault at that point, even if it's just a personal difference and entirely reasonable for them to be doing whatever it is they are doing. Regardless, it still isn't working. And at the end of the day, the managers perceptions (and their superiors perceptions) are what matters. It's literally why they are there, and their job. Is it fair? Often, no it is not. Is it life? Yes.
    - GoToRO 3y ago
      If only their perception matters, then they should put it in the job ad. But no, they prefer to lie: we are a team, we want the best, we are a meritocracy. That's the problem. They should look in the mirror more often because no IC can bankrupt a company, but a couple managers will.
      - lazide 3y ago
        What does any of that have to do with what I said? Only one person on the team has the ability to fire anyone. Everyone can quit. So, when push comes to shove who’s perception of if things are working matters? If the other party quit, there is no shove or pushing. All of that is the same at any and every company (barring union rules or other contracts), no need to put it in the ad. And yes, ultimately every company gets what the consequences of its actions results in - and managers are agents of the company. The hardest part is often those consequences are a lot more pleasant for them then it is for labor/employees. That is also life.
        3y ago
magpi3 3y ago
The same phenomenon exists in teaching. When I student is failing, a teacher constantly has to challenge themselves whether or not the failure lies with their approach. I think students are set up to fail all the time. But with 60+ students, this self-examination can be exhausting. And if you begin to micro-manage/criticize students, you risk them making them feel stupid. I have found that you have to do the opposite: you have to give them more freedom, more personal responsibility, and you have to challenge them to succeed. They have to own it. They have to have the agency to figure things out and ask questions. It's the only solution. You can't coddle someone to success. Of course if this fails, I look like a shitty teacher. Teaching is hard. Managing is hard too, I am sure. I teach middle-school students to be clear. At certain ages, yes students need a lot of structure and they can't figure things out themselves.
- 4wsn 3y ago
  > You can't coddle someone to success. The most succinct way I've heard this massive cultural problem explained.
geocrasher 3y ago
As a young person I had a job at a computer repair shop. I might have been 19 years old. They did a 1 day working interview. I impressed them heavily with 10 repairs in the day, all of them solid and billable. They hired me. I was alarmed when they also hired a guy that blew up a customer's motherboard by plugging in the PSU cables incorrectly (This was the in the mid 90's). It went downhill from there. I became the target of a lot of bullying and harassment from the alpha jackass, leader of the coked up jackasses that worked there, and eventually he gave me a degrading nickname that implied that everything I touched broke. I was constantly stressed out, felt like the worst employee in the world (at that age I didn't know I was the victim at this point) and this self-fulfilling prophecy just made things worse. Suddenly I'd become bad at my job. I couldn't fix 5 computers a day, and they often came back with problems. Was this issue me? No. the issue was a highly toxic workplace where I was berated for my successes ("Oh look, he fixed one, must be a F****n miracle") and expected to fail. I'd have quit, but I needed the work. The manager, a lowlife cokehead and strip club aficionado, mercy fired me 2 months in. He saw the problem but didn't care to fix it. Of course, I was better off. They were a crooked shop to begin with and my reputation was at risk for having worked there even 2 months. Many years later I am a well respected manager who never treats employees like this. I am well aware that if my employee is failing me, then in some way I am failing them. I work on the relationship with the employee as much as I work on the issue. I encourage their successes, help them work through any issues, and show confidence in them until they start showing confidence in themselves. I can honestly say this approach has worked wonders, and I've seen huge HUGE turnarounds in employees who thought they could never make it. Now they're rock stars.
- namaria 3y ago
  Sometimes a crash course on how not to do things is a most effective form of education...
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    Definitely not in this case.
    - 3y ago
winwang 3y ago
> Boss and subordinate typically settle into a routine that is not really satisfactory but, aside from periodic clashes, is otherwise bearable for them. This sounds like a game theoretic setup. I'm annoyed that, in this scenario, the boss gets all the upside of good results, and none of the downside of bad results. In such a context, every IC should aim to become a manager immediately.
IAmGraydon 3y ago
This sounds like the kind of thing that happens when you make a bad hire and then try to force it to work. Words to live by: Hire fast, fire fast. Yep, as the article mentions, that has costs. What has a much higher cost is hiring the wrong person and hanging on to them, hoping to manage them into a great fit.
Terretta 3y ago
Business writing, including within HBR, has fallen farther than one remembers over the past 20 years. This piece's style is refreshing.
StefanBatory 3y ago
In the end isn't that the employee fault anyway? It's them who are failing - and reasons why don't matter I've been in such situation before and I accepted that it was mine and only fault for being a bad person.

https://archive.is/FThP1 https://archive.is/FThP1

I am always afraid that I'm doing this with my subordinates. Probably to a fault. So I treat everything as a learning experience. Recap anything and everything that went right or wrong and talk it out. What did we do well, what could have been done better. All of that. The problem only comes when you run into someone who is a constant victim. Any negative feedback immediately becomes someone else's fault. Any perceived injustice is immediately a huge deal. I do not know how to work with that type of person. If they do not see their faults, either professional or personal, it's hard for me to help. Any suggestions?

itopaloglu83 3y ago
I believe Sun Tzu demonstrated it with 180 concubines. He first explains the process. Takes the blame on himself if the instructions were not clear. When the failure continues, he warns. And if it continues again, he punishes. https://titusng.com/2013/03/04/the-test-of-sun-tzus-art-of-war-on-concubines/ https://titusng.com/2013/03/04/the-test-of-sun-tzus-art-of-w...
- rrr_oh_man 3y ago
  "Behead middle management"
readthenotes1 3y ago
I was always suspicious of all the 4-factor personality tests I was exposed to in the corporate world because it seemed to me they were glossy but not very helpful. Then I found out about OCEAN and realized the 4 factor tests were always avoiding the only one that mattered: Neuroticism. (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) https://www.thelifedoctor.org/the-narcissist-s-prayer https://www.thelifedoctor.org/the-narcissist-s-prayer While it is unlikely that the uncoachable are full blown narcissists, those employees probably need a lot of counseling to overcome whatever life experiences that taught them corrective feedback is a personal attack.
- refulgentis 3y ago
  The jump from Neuroticism to Narcissist confused me. I'm a bit wary of anything touching on narcissism, there was a big jump in people who loved talking about their narcissist ex the past 2-3 years. (the cousins of body language doctors via true crime YouTube)
  - graemep 3y ago
    > The jump from Neuroticism to Narcissist confused me. Me too > I'm a bit wary of anything touching on narcissism, there was a big jump in people who loved talking about their narcissist ex the past 2-3 years. The term narcissist maybe overused, but a lot of us also learned to recognise it in recent years. It is a fairly common behaviour, and people can have narcissistic traits without having clinical NPD. Just because some people claim their ex was narcissistic without adequate justification, that does not mean there are not also many who are right when they say it. I think being forced into being confined with people during lockdowns also made people realise what they were putting up with. Because it is so different from how reasonable people behave, and it is associated with abusive behaviour, it can be hard to figure out what is going on. A bigger problem IMO is the overuse of "gaslighting" which dilutes its meaning and makes it harder to clearly describe the actual behaviour.
    - ambicapter 3y ago
      > a lot of us also learned to recognise it in recent years [Citation Needed] What triggered this large-scale awakening?
  - readthenotes1 3y ago
    Try giving corrective direction to a narcissist and see how emotionally stable they are...
- andrewflnr 3y ago
  Weird that you'd say neuroticism is the "only one that mattered". I'm more inclined to believe that for conscientiousness. I gather it's strongly correlated with life outcomes.
arbitrage 3y ago
Do you talk with them, or talk at them? Are you the only one giving feedback? What feedback do you get from the employee you've been failing to connect with?
thereisnospork 3y ago
An opinion: I would say that they are what they are, and that people need to want to be helped. To me that would be someone to delegate work to that is clearly within their competencies but which is not 'growth work' that would requisite [negative] feedback. The question then becomes whether or not they remain an asset under those limitations. If they are not an asset to the team/company, then I would be inclined to proceed down the 'improve or else' path, starting of course with informal but frank conversations / formal reviews about the specific shortcomings, with specific examples and specific ways similar situations should be handled in the future[0]. Otherwise it gets muddier, because there is conflicting interest between a 'happy' status quo where his/her growth is going to be kneecapped vs. potentially demoralizing them trying to force them to grow. Imo all you can really do there is be upfront at 1-on-1's and formal reviews. A final point is that this behavior is not likely lost on the rest of the team: regardless of how the 'offender' is handled it is important to not let things fester. I've been part of more than one group where morale was wrecked because management was too concerned with being 'nice' to move on from problematic persons. [0]Specifics are key here, not just for them but for you: if you can't distill down the desired corrections into actionables your subordinates aren't going to be able to either.
- caseyy 3y ago
  Could be risky to put a person known for victimizing themselves on the spot. That can even blow up in ways not limited to the company. I do agree with the sentiment of addressing things head-on, but these employees can be very delicate. This is the only type of employee I handle with kid gloves.
caseyy 3y ago
I’ve learned to deal with this kind of employee. The root cause is often insecurity so that’s what needs to be dealt with. Everything else may be a red herring. 1. Active listen to everything they say, even if it’s their unique perception of things. Do not challenge them, repeat what they said sometimes to make them feel smart, laugh at all the jokes, make them feel heard. You can acknowledge what they say and still not agree with them. Say “that must feel hard”, “that sounds disappointing”, “I can see you’re putting in a lot of effort” — acknowledge the feelings and generally true things (most people put effort into their work), not the minute facts if you think they could be wrong. 2. Give them a lot of praise and thanks, but be genuine. Don't make up praise, just turn up the positive feedback and turn down the negative. Basically, give this person 10% of the most important negative feedback only and 90% of the most important positive feedback. 3. Give them autonomy and trust. Take them off the critical path so they don’t have any real deadlines if you are worried about their performance, there is always backlog. Give them a simple project and trust them completely with the execution. Have 1:1s sometimes to give very very gentle guidance - “what do you think about X?” “What are some alternatives to Y?” “I read this article about Z, why don’t you have a look?” 4. Be friendly to them. Communicate a lot and informally, don’t be formal or involve many people in the communication. Focus on the frequency of the communication. There are some other tips in a book about building professional friendships called The Like Switch. 5. Increase bus factor, these people sometimes still leave unexpectedly. Someone might say something about them publicly or privately, or there will be some perceived slight against them and they will feel victimized. 6. Over time, you can gradually bring such a person back to the critical path and show them “the way” of being secure in the workplace by example. 7. Don’t talk negatively about this person behind their back, even if you usually share your work frustrations with work friends and even the small stuff (“X never washes his mug in the sink, I’m constantly washing up after him” — not even benign remarks like that). If it comes out, that will undo all of your hard work building up this employee. If it doesn’t, but other people learn about this person’s traits, then they might say something and that could turn into a significant problem, even leading to this person leaving because of a perceived slight. Also, protect yourself. Speak to your own manager (but only them) about this person candidly when you are asked. Say that they tend to view themselves as a victim and they’re not very responsive to feedback, but that you are taking steps A, B, C and D, and that hopefully you’re seeing progress, like that they are less timid with you, they have fewer conflicts in the team, etc. Such a person may go to your manager and stir things up if they feel like they’re victimized by you. While it may be true that this person is victimized by basically everyone from time to time, some headaches can still come to you. So make sure your manager can back you up. The truth and a little bit of time is the best antidote to this type of person if they mean harm to you. Anyways, they are not bad people, they just slipped into the victim mentality or maybe were raised that way. You can help them rebuild their self-esteem and stop seeing themselves as a victim if you must or want to. It’s probably the most challenging employee to manage though, so expect turbulence. But sometimes we don’t choose who we manage, and also, this person probably has many other great qualities which may make them very successful if they can overcome the victimhood. This works in my own practice, but it’s definitely a delicate situation.
GoToRO 3y ago
Why do you care so much about their faults? How do you know those are really faults, maybe it's just your own perception?
- lazide 3y ago
  As a manager, your responsibility is to make something work by managing the people assigned to it. If the situation isn't working, either the thing itself needs to change (rarely possible in many situations), or the person needs to change, or there needs to be a different person there. It is a fault at that point, even if it's just a personal difference and entirely reasonable for them to be doing whatever it is they are doing. Regardless, it still isn't working. And at the end of the day, the managers perceptions (and their superiors perceptions) are what matters. It's literally why they are there, and their job. Is it fair? Often, no it is not. Is it life? Yes.
  - GoToRO 3y ago
    If only their perception matters, then they should put it in the job ad. But no, they prefer to lie: we are a team, we want the best, we are a meritocracy. That's the problem. They should look in the mirror more often because no IC can bankrupt a company, but a couple managers will.
    - lazide 3y ago
      What does any of that have to do with what I said? Only one person on the team has the ability to fire anyone. Everyone can quit. So, when push comes to shove who’s perception of if things are working matters? If the other party quit, there is no shove or pushing. All of that is the same at any and every company (barring union rules or other contracts), no need to put it in the ad. And yes, ultimately every company gets what the consequences of its actions results in - and managers are agents of the company. The hardest part is often those consequences are a lot more pleasant for them then it is for labor/employees. That is also life.
      - 3y ago

magpi3 3y ago

The same phenomenon exists in teaching. When I student is failing, a teacher constantly has to challenge themselves whether or not the failure lies with their approach. I think students are set up to fail all the time. But with 60+ students, this self-examination can be exhausting. And if you begin to micro-manage/criticize students, you risk them making them feel stupid. I have found that you have to do the opposite: you have to give them more freedom, more personal responsibility, and you have to challenge them to succeed. They have to own it. They have to have the agency to figure things out and ask questions. It's the only solution. You can't coddle someone to success. Of course if this fails, I look like a shitty teacher. Teaching is hard. Managing is hard too, I am sure. I teach middle-school students to be clear. At certain ages, yes students need a lot of structure and they can't figure things out themselves.

4wsn 3y ago
> You can't coddle someone to success. The most succinct way I've heard this massive cultural problem explained.

geocrasher 3y ago

As a young person I had a job at a computer repair shop. I might have been 19 years old. They did a 1 day working interview. I impressed them heavily with 10 repairs in the day, all of them solid and billable. They hired me. I was alarmed when they also hired a guy that blew up a customer's motherboard by plugging in the PSU cables incorrectly (This was the in the mid 90's). It went downhill from there. I became the target of a lot of bullying and harassment from the alpha jackass, leader of the coked up jackasses that worked there, and eventually he gave me a degrading nickname that implied that everything I touched broke. I was constantly stressed out, felt like the worst employee in the world (at that age I didn't know I was the victim at this point) and this self-fulfilling prophecy just made things worse. Suddenly I'd become bad at my job. I couldn't fix 5 computers a day, and they often came back with problems. Was this issue me? No. the issue was a highly toxic workplace where I was berated for my successes ("Oh look, he fixed one, must be a F****n miracle") and expected to fail. I'd have quit, but I needed the work. The manager, a lowlife cokehead and strip club aficionado, mercy fired me 2 months in. He saw the problem but didn't care to fix it. Of course, I was better off. They were a crooked shop to begin with and my reputation was at risk for having worked there even 2 months. Many years later I am a well respected manager who never treats employees like this. I am well aware that if my employee is failing me, then in some way I am failing them. I work on the relationship with the employee as much as I work on the issue. I encourage their successes, help them work through any issues, and show confidence in them until they start showing confidence in themselves. I can honestly say this approach has worked wonders, and I've seen huge HUGE turnarounds in employees who thought they could never make it. Now they're rock stars.

namaria 3y ago
Sometimes a crash course on how not to do things is a most effective form of education...
- LoganDark 3y ago
  Definitely not in this case.
  - 3y ago

winwang 3y ago

> Boss and subordinate typically settle into a routine that is not really satisfactory but, aside from periodic clashes, is otherwise bearable for them. This sounds like a game theoretic setup. I'm annoyed that, in this scenario, the boss gets all the upside of good results, and none of the downside of bad results. In such a context, every IC should aim to become a manager immediately.

IAmGraydon 3y ago

This sounds like the kind of thing that happens when you make a bad hire and then try to force it to work. Words to live by: Hire fast, fire fast. Yep, as the article mentions, that has costs. What has a much higher cost is hiring the wrong person and hanging on to them, hoping to manage them into a great fit.

Terretta 3y ago

Business writing, including within HBR, has fallen farther than one remembers over the past 20 years. This piece's style is refreshing.

StefanBatory 3y ago

In the end isn't that the employee fault anyway? It's them who are failing - and reasons why don't matter I've been in such situation before and I accepted that it was mine and only fault for being a bad person.