The Hero Trap
Lately there has been a lot of talk of Hero's mostly of the super variety. However there are hero's around us all the time, especially at work. That's the problem. I don't think it's unique or special, but I think every office has the office 'Hero' The go to guy or girl that will do 'whatever it takes'. At first it just sounds like they are trying to get ahead. but what are they doing really? The hero is usually the one that knows how most everything works in the company, they are smart and driven. They usually are very pleased to please. All of these traits are fine. But why do hero's ruin everything?
Lets look at Superman. A hero's hero. You know who isn't that impressed with him? The police. That's right, the man of steel is probably just 'that guy' if you ask the police of metropolis. The problem is, while he is apprehending the bad guys and getting all the credit. The city managers and politicians look at the police and says 'why aren't they more like superman?' After all, they get paid to be less effective than the man of steel? Well we don't need that. So soon, the police are running on a skeleton staff and crime actually gets worse instead of better. Supes is ready and willing to take over a large portion of the policing what with his super attributes. He can take care of it. In fact Superman does it all for free! Where is the downside? Well when supes is done being super there is usually a LOT of reconstruction work that has to get done. There is also probably a lot of people that got injured in the process. But Superman gets the job done (Whatever it takes)! But had the police been there all along doing their average job, the city would have been in better condition all around.
Ok, ok. enough Superman. How does this pertain to a business? The metaphor fits pretty well. Business hires a guy that is smarter than most and willing. At first it's good, he's a good guy that gets the job done. Then some bad managers mosey in and promise tight deadlines that will not be able to be made in a regular work day. The hero then dons his tights. He works all night and all day and makes the deadline much to the delight of the bad managers. These bad managers made vague promises about bonuses or promotions but they never come through. Why would you want to take a hero out of their position? They even take him to lunch as a 'thank you', or present him with an award of some sort. Meanwhile, over time the workers around him stop feeling like they are valued and stop doing as much work. After all. Super guy is the go to. He always makes the managers look good by getting their really bad deadlines and ill thought plans into being. He works day and night to get everything done assuming it's an emergency. But if he can do that, what else can he do? Pretty soon the Hero is getting all of the big assignments. Meanwhile the company is getting larger and larger and more and more is being heaped on the Hero's back. He's been putting in regular 10-12 hour days and been congratulated for it as an 'employee of the month' which translated means: If you want to be valuable to us, you need to work for free. Well the regular rank and file employees don't really like this but what's to be done? They have a regular life and the business is NOT everything they do. Well they get sidelined, or worse, laid off. They are caught in the work/life balance trap. If they are actually balanced, They lose out and if they are not balanced, they are miserable. Thanks Hero, you're great.
But that's just sour grapes for those employees right? I mean look at all the things the hero has done for the company right? Well lets look at that too. You see. If regular workers doing regular time were allowed to do the work you would have a distributed knowledge base across the company AND you would have managers getting better and better at predicting output from those employees. But since there is a Hero on board, you don't know how long something will take. you just give him bad deadlines and he will make sure they are made! TADA! And the manager actually gets worse not better. They will soak up every last super drop of effort from the Hero until he is burned out and then what? Suddenly the whole company is looking sluggish because there has been a lack of balance in a lot of ways. All those projects pulled together don't look so great when compared to the fact that the company looks like it has no idea how to do things or show consistent output. Instead they have promised and promised until now they don't have any way to look great through the work of their hero. So now it's bad for the company as well.
This is not to blame the Hero. After all, who doesn't like being told they are doing a great job? Once you are told you are doing a great job it's very easy to ask you to take on more because you were just told that you are doing a great job. How can you not? So you do. The hero is usually a victim in this because as an employee they are just doing what the managers want them to do. The problem here rests solely with management. The hero is just using their abilities to their best advantage. When does superman NOT show up at the call for help? Never. That's not Superman's fault.
Lets look at Superman. A hero's hero. You know who isn't that impressed with him? The police. That's right, the man of steel is probably just 'that guy' if you ask the police of metropolis. The problem is, while he is apprehending the bad guys and getting all the credit. The city managers and politicians look at the police and says 'why aren't they more like superman?' After all, they get paid to be less effective than the man of steel? Well we don't need that. So soon, the police are running on a skeleton staff and crime actually gets worse instead of better. Supes is ready and willing to take over a large portion of the policing what with his super attributes. He can take care of it. In fact Superman does it all for free! Where is the downside? Well when supes is done being super there is usually a LOT of reconstruction work that has to get done. There is also probably a lot of people that got injured in the process. But Superman gets the job done (Whatever it takes)! But had the police been there all along doing their average job, the city would have been in better condition all around.
Ok, ok. enough Superman. How does this pertain to a business? The metaphor fits pretty well. Business hires a guy that is smarter than most and willing. At first it's good, he's a good guy that gets the job done. Then some bad managers mosey in and promise tight deadlines that will not be able to be made in a regular work day. The hero then dons his tights. He works all night and all day and makes the deadline much to the delight of the bad managers. These bad managers made vague promises about bonuses or promotions but they never come through. Why would you want to take a hero out of their position? They even take him to lunch as a 'thank you', or present him with an award of some sort. Meanwhile, over time the workers around him stop feeling like they are valued and stop doing as much work. After all. Super guy is the go to. He always makes the managers look good by getting their really bad deadlines and ill thought plans into being. He works day and night to get everything done assuming it's an emergency. But if he can do that, what else can he do? Pretty soon the Hero is getting all of the big assignments. Meanwhile the company is getting larger and larger and more and more is being heaped on the Hero's back. He's been putting in regular 10-12 hour days and been congratulated for it as an 'employee of the month' which translated means: If you want to be valuable to us, you need to work for free. Well the regular rank and file employees don't really like this but what's to be done? They have a regular life and the business is NOT everything they do. Well they get sidelined, or worse, laid off. They are caught in the work/life balance trap. If they are actually balanced, They lose out and if they are not balanced, they are miserable. Thanks Hero, you're great.
But that's just sour grapes for those employees right? I mean look at all the things the hero has done for the company right? Well lets look at that too. You see. If regular workers doing regular time were allowed to do the work you would have a distributed knowledge base across the company AND you would have managers getting better and better at predicting output from those employees. But since there is a Hero on board, you don't know how long something will take. you just give him bad deadlines and he will make sure they are made! TADA! And the manager actually gets worse not better. They will soak up every last super drop of effort from the Hero until he is burned out and then what? Suddenly the whole company is looking sluggish because there has been a lack of balance in a lot of ways. All those projects pulled together don't look so great when compared to the fact that the company looks like it has no idea how to do things or show consistent output. Instead they have promised and promised until now they don't have any way to look great through the work of their hero. So now it's bad for the company as well.
This is not to blame the Hero. After all, who doesn't like being told they are doing a great job? Once you are told you are doing a great job it's very easy to ask you to take on more because you were just told that you are doing a great job. How can you not? So you do. The hero is usually a victim in this because as an employee they are just doing what the managers want them to do. The problem here rests solely with management. The hero is just using their abilities to their best advantage. When does superman NOT show up at the call for help? Never. That's not Superman's fault.
So in the end, by taking a hero and using them for all of their capacity you have taken your company and gotten them addicted to the drug of free labor and increased output. If the Hero comes in to work and leaves after an 8 hour day, everyone says 'Hey, where is he going? doesn't he know that everything is on fire? (another great product of heroism is the realization that unless you call everything an emergency you won't get the hero's attention). So the hero has eventually broken himself as well. Unless he is always the hero he is thought of as sub-standard.
Extraordinary effort once in a while is necessary to fill the gaps in planning. But when planning is so bad the gaps are regular in the course of a day the hero becomes a necessity. What you don't need is a hero worker, you need a hero manager.
The hero manager is a different sort. Instead of focusing on individual output in the short term, he focuses on the overall effort of the team. He see's the hero and his tendencies, but instead of exploiting the hero for speed, he exploits the hero for ability. If he can get the hero to create his knowledge in other people then everyone can go home on time knowing that the job is being done. The hero initially doesn't like it as it takes much longer to impart the hero's knowledge to the ignorant and they would much rather do the heroic and get the credit.
The hero manager is working towards excellence through consistency. If you run a regular engine at around 3000 RPMS, you can run that engine for a very long time at the same speed. If you run that same engine at 6000 RPMS you can get more speed at the cost of much greater wear on the engine. Only sports cars are designed to run at high RPMS. regular cars can do it for short bursts, but if you want to keep the car you own, you don't run it that fast often. The hero manager would rather have many cars that are good for hundreds of miles than one car that is good for the quarter mile dash. Hero managers can confidently predict with a high degree of certainty how long and with how much effort any project may require to be done. They are dependable. What factor in any product is more important than dependability? Hero managers would be the ones that tell employees 'Hey, the day is over we've predicted our date of completion and we appear to be on track. There is no reason for you to be here longer than 8 hours. If there is, I need to know about it. We need to be able to take that into account for next time. He knows that short term kudos are not worth long term consistency.
Now, more than ever...is when a company should reduce it's reliance on heroism and embrace sane consistency. A bad company to work for can immediately be seen in how many hero tactics they employ.
Extraordinary effort once in a while is necessary to fill the gaps in planning. But when planning is so bad the gaps are regular in the course of a day the hero becomes a necessity. What you don't need is a hero worker, you need a hero manager.
The hero manager is a different sort. Instead of focusing on individual output in the short term, he focuses on the overall effort of the team. He see's the hero and his tendencies, but instead of exploiting the hero for speed, he exploits the hero for ability. If he can get the hero to create his knowledge in other people then everyone can go home on time knowing that the job is being done. The hero initially doesn't like it as it takes much longer to impart the hero's knowledge to the ignorant and they would much rather do the heroic and get the credit.
The hero manager is working towards excellence through consistency. If you run a regular engine at around 3000 RPMS, you can run that engine for a very long time at the same speed. If you run that same engine at 6000 RPMS you can get more speed at the cost of much greater wear on the engine. Only sports cars are designed to run at high RPMS. regular cars can do it for short bursts, but if you want to keep the car you own, you don't run it that fast often. The hero manager would rather have many cars that are good for hundreds of miles than one car that is good for the quarter mile dash. Hero managers can confidently predict with a high degree of certainty how long and with how much effort any project may require to be done. They are dependable. What factor in any product is more important than dependability? Hero managers would be the ones that tell employees 'Hey, the day is over we've predicted our date of completion and we appear to be on track. There is no reason for you to be here longer than 8 hours. If there is, I need to know about it. We need to be able to take that into account for next time. He knows that short term kudos are not worth long term consistency.
Now, more than ever...is when a company should reduce it's reliance on heroism and embrace sane consistency. A bad company to work for can immediately be seen in how many hero tactics they employ.
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