Fear is the opposite of trust in the workplace (and elsewhere). Trust is important for high performing organizations because its opposite (fear) leads to employee turnover, marginal work, and sometimes sabotage among other behaviors. Trust, on the other hand leads to synergy and performance. As organizations begin to organize virtually, the notions of fear and trust become even more important. Charles Handy, an author and management consultant, addressed this issue quite clearly. “If we are to enjoy the efficiencies and other benefits of the virtual organization, we will have to rediscover how to run organizations based more on trust than on control. Virtuality requires trust to make it work: Technology on its own is not enough” The following book response explores the issue of fear in the traditional or non-virtual workplace. There is no reason to expect we will do better when we organize virtually, thus it is likely that in many cases fear will become even more of a problem. This is an area for leaders of virtual organizations to be aware of and take corrective action where necessary.
This paper is a book response for the book, "Driving Fear out of the Workplace," written by Kathleen Ryan and Daniel Oestreich. This response includes three primary elements: a summary of key concepts, a synthesis of learning’s, and finally, applications to my own effectiveness as an organizational leader.
Overview.There are four essential themes covered in the text: dynamics of fear, how fear operates in organizations, strategies that build high-trust work environments, and long-term challenges. Fear as covered in this text is the fear of speaking up at work.
Dynamics of fear. Fear in the workplace is defined as "feeling threatened by possible repercussions as a result of speaking up about work-related concerns. These feelings of threat can come from four sources: actual experience, stories about others’ experiences, assumptions and interpretations of others’ behavior, and negative, culturally based stereotypes about those with supervisory power (Ryan, 1991, p. 21)." Fear is not always present. The relationship of the employee to his or her manager is a primary importance. And a primary factor in the relationship is trust: low-trust indicates more fear than does high-trust relationships. Fear does not have to be an element of daily work; a little bit of fear goes a long way. Fear is cumulative. Reactions to fear tend to be strong; fear is not casually ignored or set aside. However, in spite of fear in the workplace, most organizations operate successfully. But, even these organizations could improve if fear were reduced or eliminated.
How fear operates in organizations. There are some things that are not discussed in some organizations such as salaries, conflicts, change, and bad news. Problems related to things people cannot talk about cannot be resolved and this creates problems for organizations. When people fear repercussions of speaking up; whether these fears are real or imaginary, energy is diverted from productive to non-productive work. Morale can plummet, and a lose-lose situation is created for both employees and the organization. Probably the most important way in which fear operates in organizations is the cycle of mistrust. This cycle involves two parties, in this case employees and managers. Both parties use perceived or real observed aggressive behavior of the other party with negative assumptions (mental models) and self-protective behavior to create, usually unintentionally, a conflict situation with the other party. This cycle is reinforced over time resulting in fear, gridlock, and other forms of destructive and non-productive behavior.
Strategies that build high-trust work environments. There are several strategies that can be used: create a shared vision with managers and employees; acknowledge that fear exists and take steps to reduce it; pay attention to interpersonal conduct – understand and practice good interpersonal skills; value criticism – use it to improve products and processes, but don’t shoot the messenger; reduce ambiguous behavior by being more specific in expectations, guidelines, and requests for example; discuss all aspects of organizational life – nothing should be off-limits; practice collaborative decision making; and challenge worst-case thinking by also exploring the upside and build action plans for all cases including contingencies.
Long-term challenges. Challenge the process. People clearly prefer to work in a threat-free environment and in many cases a threat-free environment may be the one factor that keeps the organization in business.
Synthesis of learning’s
There are several lessons to be learned from this book. I will focus on three points due to limits on the length of this paper.
First, the "cycle of mistrust" as described between manager’s and employee’s is described in another manner as the accidental adversary archetype where the roles of manager and employee are abstracted. Other roles are equally valid in this model.
The accidental adversarial archetype explains how groups of people who ought to be in partnership with each other, and who want to be in partnership with each other, end up bitterly opposed. It applies to teams working across functions, joint ventures between organizations, union-management battles, suppliers and manufacturers, family disputes, and even civil wars (Senge, 1994, p. 145).
One way out of this conflict is for each party to improve its understanding of the other parties needs, understand how each party is unintentionally undermining the others needs, and finally how each party could support the other instead. This is essentially a problem-solving strategy which follows a simple rule: "do only those things that are both good for the relationship and good for us, whether or not they reciprocate (Fisher, 1988, p. 38)."
Second, use collaborative problem-solving instead of authoritarian decision-making. It is "the one that most directly results in a reduction of fear (Ryan, 1991, p. 204)." Collaborative decision-making is also one of the essential characteristics of effective teams (French, 1995, p. 170)." Effective or real teams are or "should be the basic unit of performance for most organizations, regardless of size. In any situation requiring the real-time combination of multiple skills, experiences , and judgments, a team inevitably gets better results than a collection of individual (Katzenbach, 1993, p. 15)." It appears that if organizations want to increase productivity, then it makes sense to organize in such a manner as to make it possible, including the removal of fear in the workplace. This notion is reflected by Bolman (1991, p. 155) as "many other studies of participation at work have found that it leads to significant improvements in both morale and productivity."
Third, to reduce fear, establish a shared vision of the workplace environment and develop a set of shared workplace principles or values such as: "mutual helpfulness, understanding, and trust (Ryan, 1991, p. 104)." Vision is very important when working through change. Vision is the target or the "light at the end of the tunnel" we all hope for. "A working vision consists of those few words – closer to five than fifty – that enable people to see clearly in their minds eye where the change will take them and why it matters (Katzenbach, 1995, p. 66)." Considering the pace of change today; some estimates are that global knowledge doubles about every five years, we must do all that we can to reduce the barriers to learning and to innovation if we expect our organizations to survive. Reducing fear in the workplace is a good place to start.
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