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Collateral Damage Risk Factor 3: Performance Metrics
A third risk factor for collateral damage lies at the very heart and soul of business – metrics.
Risk Factor 3: Performance metrics and incentives are skewed towards measurable business objectives such as sales quotas, income statements and project deliverables.
Here’s the scoop.
We pay attention to what is measured and rewarded – especially in business. That is doubly true for Type A top performers. Their mantra is… “Show me the goal and then get out of my way!”
Few things make a Type A superstar happier than blowing a goal out of the water. We’ve already established many of them will even do ‘whatever it takes’ to be successful.
No question. Performance metrics are the bedrock of business and the pulse of top performers.
However, there is also a dark side to key performance indicators that increases the odds of a collateral damage catastrophe.
When all eyes are on quantifiable performance metrics, it is easy to forget about the less measurable things like respect, appreciation and trust. Overlooking these intangibles is just begging for collateral damage.
Need an example? Try this on.
The Department Director hits stratospheric profit levels by bullying her direct reports. Happily focused on the money rolling in, the President doesn’t notice the Director’s intimidation and unreasonable demands on her staff until the Director’s team writes a letter to the President demanding the Director be fired or they will all walk out the door.
As long as the metrics are good, the collateral damage goes unnoticed.
A word of caution.
You may have the fastest, sexiest race car on the circuit, but if you are so focused on racking up the wins that you forget to change the oil, you’re asking for trouble. Sure, you may win a few races, but eventually your motor is going to seize up. You’ll be left swinging a fire extinguisher instead of a checkered flag.
The same thing happens when your eyeballs are locked on performance metrics.
To avoid a collateral damage catastrophe, you’ve got to pay attention to the less measurable aspects of performance, too.
What’s your performance score on the intangibles like trust and respect?
Risk Factor 2: Normalization of Deviance
Let’s continue our look at the seven invisible risk factors of top performer collateral damage.
Risk Factor 2: Normalization of deviance turns unacceptable behaviors into acceptable behaviors.
When it comes to top performer collateral damage, nothing is more of a ticking time bomb than normalization of deviance. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up and tell you a story.
In 1986 the world watched in horror as the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after lift-off killing all seven astronauts on board. An extensive investigation revealed the explosion was caused by defective O-rings, the risk of which was well known by NASA leaders prior to the Challenger catastrophe.
Why did the NASA leadership launch the space shuttle when they knew there was the very real risk of O-ring failure?
Once again, an autopsy revealed the sad truth.
In the book, The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture and Deviance at NASA, sociologist Diane Vaughan dug into what led to the Challenger disaster and why the well-documented risks of O-ring failure had been ignored by NASA management.
Dr. Vaughan’s findings were startling.
What had originally been considered an unacceptable event – in this case, O-ring failure – had occurred so often over prior launches that it had become an expected event and, finally, an accepted event. O-ring failure during launch had gone from being an unacceptable event to an acceptable event. Vaughan called this phenomenon normalization of deviance.
Simply put, normalization of deviance is present when events that were initially considered to be unacceptable occur so often that – over time – they come to be expected and then accepted as normal. An event or behavior that is originally considered unacceptable now becomes accepted as normal.
Normalization of deviance runs rampant within today’s work world and provides a fertile ground for top performer collateral damage.
Don’t believe me?
Let me give you just one example of how normalization of deviance shows up in our work lives.
Twenty years ago, the 8-hour work day and the 40-hour workweek were considered to be ‘normal’. Today, technology, 24/7 global marketplaces and competitive pressures have all blurred the boundaries of work. A ‘normal’ workday now often stretches into evenings and weekends.
Consider this. A 2006 Korn/Ferry International survey of more than 1000 executives revealed that four out of five executives say they are constantly connected to work through laptops or handheld communication devices.
Being constantly connected to work would have been considered unacceptable in the past, but has now become so common that it is expected and accepted as normal. In fact, it’s recognized as one of the major changes that occurred in the past decade.
Just let this sink in for a minute. Normalization of deviance has made 24/7 work an accepted part of today’s workplace. Work interrupts our vacations, family dinners and sleep. And… we accept this as normal!
So… how does normalization of deviance increase the risk of top performer collateral damage?”
In two ways.
First, normalization of deviance desensitizes us to behaviors that cause collateral damage.
Behaviors that would normally stick out like a sore thumb fade from view as they become so commonplace that they are considered ‘normal’. Let me show you how this works.
The first time a top performer creates collateral damage it may stand out as an odd or bizarre event because it is unexpected and unaccepted. Conversations around the water cooler may sound a little like this…
“Wow! Did you see how George bulldozed over Jack in that meeting? It was brutal the way he shut down the discussion… but you can’t argue with the great results he got.”
Over time, as George continues to bulldoze over his colleagues, people around him are no longer surprised. They come to expect George to create the collateral damage along with his spectacular results.
Bulldozing through people – and the collateral damage it creates – is accepted as normal behavior for George. It disappears as a risk factor until the tsunami hits.
But, wait. There’s more.
Junior associates all over the organization now consider bulldozing to be an acceptable – even desirable – behavior. The resulting collateral damage doesn’t even register a blip on their internal Richter scales. Yikes!
The seeds of top performer collateral damage are now scattering throughout the organization like dandelion fluffs. Before you know it, you’ll have teams full of battling bulldozers.
As bad as this is, it’s not the only way normalization of deviance increases the odds of a collateral damage catastrophe. Keep reading.
The second way normalization of deviance encourages and disguises top performer collateral damage involves… drum roll, please…supervisor bias.
Let’s be honest.
We have a tendency to encourage and reward behaviors that are similar to our own behaviors and that includes our own flavor of collateral damage.
Skeptical? Ponder this.
When you are surrounded by people who sound just like you, you don’t notice their accent. They sound ‘normal’ to you. Your ears are biased to hear accents like your own accent as ‘normal’.
The same thing happens with collateral damage.
If your top performers are creating the same kind of collateral damage that you create, it’s highly unlikely you will see it. To you, the collateral damage creating behavior appears ‘normal’.
Want to see how this works? Let’s use our old friend, George the Bulldozer, and his direct report, Phyllis.
As we just saw, George takes great pride in his ability to bulldoze dissenting opinions. In fact, George is convinced bulldozing is THE way to cut through the crap and get things done. Under his tutelage, Phyllis is perfecting the art of plowing through people, too. Phyllis is a baby bulldozer.
So… what are the chances that George is going to catch the collateral damage Phyllis is creating when she plows through people?
Slim, nill and none.
George has a bulldozer ‘accent’. He has a bias in favor of bulldozing. Consequently, George sees Phyllis’ bulldozing behavior as “normal”.
The odds of Phyllis creating collateral damage are high and George doesn’t even notice.
Supervisor bias is as common as cubicles and coffee.
What this all boils down to is this. You rarely see a top performer’s collateral damage if you are also creating the same type of collateral damage. It takes a train wreck to get your attention.
What type of collateral damage are you accepting as normal?
Risk Factor 1: Whatever It Takes Is a Big Mistake
Are you ready to cast some light on the seven invisible risk factors of top performer collateral damage? Let’s get going. Here’s the first one.
Risk Factor 1: The ‘whatever it takes’ philosophy is encouraged and rewarded.
Let’s be clear.
The vast majority of top performers are Type A individuals. They are ambitious, driven to achieve and prone to setting very high expectations. It stands to reason then that these well-intentioned warriors are predisposed to take on enormous challenges and power their way to success by doing…. ‘Whatever It Takes’.
To get a flavor of this ‘success on steriods’ mindset, check out this quote from T. Herv Eker’s best-selling book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.
The definition of the word commit is to “devote oneself unreservedly.” This means holding absolutely nothing back; giving 100 percent of everything you’ve got to achieving wealth. It means being willing to do ‘Whatever It Takes’ for as long as it takes. This is the warrior’s way. No excuses, no ifs, no butts, no maybes—and failure isn’t an option. The warrior’s way is simple: “I will be rich or I will die trying.”
From Oprah to George W. to Kobe, the Type A mindset of ‘Whatever It Takes’ shows up all over America. Don’t believe me? Just start paying attention. “Whatever It Takes” is flexing its cape covered arms hither, thither and yon – including the business world.
Executive leadership and Board of Directors are often composed of Type A titans who encourage, reward and perpetuate the ‘Whatever It Takes’ mindset.
There is a dark side to this seductive Type A mindset that is seldom recognized until it’s too late.
Regardless of whether you are the boisterous Braveheart or the tight-lipped, stoic Dirty Harry, Whatever It Takes can be a huge mistake. When you shift into the ‘Whatever It Takes’ mindset, you become so focused on achieving the end result that you develop tunnel vision.
Using the ‘Whatever It Takes’ approach to power through challenges day in and day out leads to exhaustion, diminished judgment and poor execution. The odds of a collateral damage catastrophe soar and, chances are, you don’t even see the writing on the wall because you are too consumed doing ‘Whatever It Takes’.
Listen to what former professional baseball player and New York Times columnist Doug Glanville has to say:
There is a tipping point in a player’s career where he goes from chasing the dream to running from a nightmare. At that point, ambition is replaced with anxiety, passion is replaced with survival. It is a downhill run and it spares no one.
We call it “drive” or “ambition,” but when doing “Whatever It Takes” leads us down the wrong road, it can erode our humanity. The game ends up playing us.
Your ‘Whatever It Takes’ may be well-intentioned, but, in the long-run, it’s a short-sighted strategy that backfires and dramatically increases your odds of a collateral damage train wreck.
Are you being seduced by “Whatever It Takes”?
Coming up: Risk Factor Two – Normalization of Deviance
The Seven Invisible Risk Factors of Collateral Damage
Just like cigarettes and donuts skyrocket your chances of becoming a coronary time bomb, there are risk factors which increase your odds of becoming a collateral damage catastrophe.
Taken individually, each of these risk factors increases the odds of Type A top performer collateral damage occurring. However, when two or more of these factors occur simultaneously, the odds of collateral damage increase exponentially.
If you’ve got two or more of these risk factors, it’s like being a chain-smoker perpetually gorging on Big Macs, french fries and Mountain Dew. Keep it up and there’s going to be costly consequences.
Here’s an important secret I want to share with you.
Unlike donuts, Big Macs and cigarettes, these seven collateral damage risk factors are so common they go unnoticed. They vanish right before your eyes.
Because these risk factors tend to be invisible to the untrained eye, recognizing the early warning signs of collateral damage is like trying to spot the hidden object in a visually cluttered photo. Now you see it. Now you don’t.
It’s no wonder we find ourselves asking, ‘What just happened?!” when a top performer goes nuts, implodes or does something stupid. We didn’t see the writing on the wall.
Over the next several weeks in this blog, we’re going to dig into and drill down into each of the seven risk factors that increase the odds of a collateral damage catastrophe.
Here’s a preview of coming attractions.
The Seven Risk Factors that Encourage Collateral Damage Catastrophes
1. The Whatever It Takes Philosophy is encouraged and rewarded.
2. Normalization of Deviance turns unacceptable behaviors into acceptable behaviors.
3. Performance Metrics are skewed towards measurable business objectives.
4. Collateral damage occurs in small bits that add up over time.
5. The top performer is unaware she is creating collateral damage so self-correction does not occur.
6. The complexity of the work environment hides the top performer as the source of collateral damage.
7. Supervisors tend to give the benefit of the doubt until the cost becomes too great.
What collateral damage risk factors are sneaking up on you?
Five Reasons You Can’t Afford to Ignore Collateral Damage
Many bosses don’t see Type A collateral damage in the early stages or, if they do see it, they believe that as long as the employee is producing excellent results, there’s no reason to “fix something that’s not broken”.
That short-sighted philosophy no longer holds water.
In the past, you could afford to overlook, tolerate or ignore friction caused by top performers.
Those days are gone.
Don’t believe me? Keep reading.
Five hard-core business reasons to bring top performer collateral damage to a screeching halt
1. Employee Engagement
You need employees who are positive, enthusiastic, motivated and energized to do an excellent job. Persistent collateral damage – especially when it comes from someone in a leadership position – creates disengaged employees. Productivity and quality take a nose dive.
2. Teamwork
Trust, collaboration and alignment are the core of effective teamwork. Collateral damage kills trust, collaboration and alignment. It destroys team morale and torpedoes team performance.
3. Innovation
Here’s the brutal truth. Disengaged employees and swiss cheese teams rarely create breakthrough solutions and products. Without innovation, you can’t be an industry leader and, worse yet, you can’t keep up with competitors.
4. Talent Retention
Employees don’t quit a job. They quit a bad boss. Talented people have options. The most talented individuals will not stay in an organization that tolerates collateral damage. When it comes to attracting and retaining top tier talent, collateral damage – particularly at the executive level – is the kiss of death.
5. Organizational Risk
Collateral damage created by top performers is the Achilles heel of executive leaders. Unfortunately, the organization pays the price. Investors lose confidence. Stock prices tumble. Competitors pounce. Star talent abandons the wobbly ship. Overlooking collateral damage is a leadership failure. It creates unacceptable – and unnecessary – levels of organizational risk.
It all comes down to this.
Turning a blind eye towards Type A collateral damage is like flushing your money down the can.
Cha-ching. Cha-ching.
Flush or fix. The choice is yours.
What’s it gonna be?
Why Top Performers are Collateral Damage Time Bombs
It happened again today.
A client had to deal with a collateral damage crisis created by one of his superstars. And… like most of these calamities… it went from tiny wisps of smoke – “Do you smell something burning?” – to a raging inferno quicker than you can say Alka Seltzer.
Sad thing is the top performer who created the catastrophe didn’t see the self-induced train wreck coming until her professional credibility was squished flatter than a pancake.
Inquiring minds want to know…
Why in the world do brilliant, super smart, highly successful Type A superstars turn into collateral damage time bombs?
Here’s the deal.
By their very nature, top performers are relentless about results. This can be both a blessing and a curse.
As top performers achieve more and more success, the likelihood of creating collateral damage also increases. Why is this?
Additional success brings increased importance, responsibility, complexity, isolation and stress. What worked in the past no longer cuts the mustard.
For example…
The account executive’s tenacious, ‘win-at-all-costs’ approach makes him the company’s top producer and earns him a promotion to General Sales Manager. In his new position, the ‘win-at-all-costs’ tactics alienate the staff, turn into a PR nightmare and cause the Board to question whether or not he is the right person for the job. Before you know it, those blue ribbons turn into pink slips.
Greater success brings a more complicated playing field and higher stakes. What was once easy now becomes more challenging.
It takes more and more effort for the top performer to achieve and sustain the stellar results.
Facing this increased difficulty, the top performer often resorts to overpowering his way to the desired results.
Decisiveness turns into intimidation. Objectivity turns into detachment. Accuracy turns into micromanaging.
Tick…tick…tick… Boom!
Another one bites the dust.
With so many stories of collateral damage derailing careers and companies, common sense tells you that both individuals and organizations would take swift action to nip it in the bud. The reality is very different.
Collateral damage created by top performers is seldom recognized or effectively dealt with until there’s a train wreck.
Oddly enough, when the collateral damage is created by a top performer, it is frequently overlooked until it reaches a tipping point where the carnage becomes too great to ignore. Like an unseen cancer, when top performer collateral damage goes undiagnosed until an advanced stage of destruction, it is much tougher to fix.
Do you smell smoke?
The Two Types of Collateral Damage
The first step in recognizing the warning signs of Type A collateral damage is knowing there are two kinds: internal collateral damage and external collateral damage.
Internal collateral damage occurs inside you. It includes anxiety, impatience and frustration to name just a few examples.
The other side of the collateral damage coin is external collateral damage.
External collateral damage is created by you but the impact occurs outside of you. Want an example? Bad bosses create external collateral damage like struggling teams, tumbling stock prices and unhappy shareholders.
Here’s a secret.
Collateral damage is a vicious cycle.
Internal collateral damage creates external collateral damage which then cranks up the internal collateral damage.
The Cost of Collateral Damage
Here’s quick refresher: Collateral damage is the undesirable side effects arising from an action, decision or attitude.
Let’s put it in real terms. And for those of you who are tired of Tiger, bear with me. There is something you can learn from this train wreck that can save you a bundle of dough and a heck of a headache.
Tiger Woods hits a fire hydrant. This sets off a string of undesirable events leading to an estimated $12 billion loss for shareholders .
Yep. You read that right. $12 billion dollars.
The shareholders certainly didn’t crash into the hydrant. They are just innocent bystanders who are $12 billion poorer because of Tiger’s decisions and actions. They are collateral damage.
Are you tied to the collateral damage track? You have a choice.
See the warning signs. Take corrective action. Avoid the wreck.
What is collateral damage costing you?
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It’s time to wake up and smell the truth. Like gas guzzling relics, traditional Type A’s are becoming passé. In the good ole’ days, with their steely-eyed focus and turbo-charged tactics, Type A’s could dominate the game by slicing, dicing and sacrificing. That pricey party is over. Award-winning executive coach Kay Cannon offers a funny insider’s look into the secret world of top performing Type A individuals and redefines how these talented and smart superstars can get great results without collateral damage.