Never Mind the Bosses

Hastening the Death of Deference for Business Success

Robin Ryde

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781118474402
• eBook ISBN: 9781118474471
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Organisational Behaviour
• Index: Business

Over the last few decades, power, information and resources have moved from being concentrated in the hands of a few, to being disbursed across many. We need look no further than events on the world stage to see the heat signature of this – from the arrival of Wikileaks, the Arab Spring of 2011 and the Occupy movements, to the social media revolution and flashpoints such as the British Members of Parliament expenses scandal.  All are examples of deep change occurring.

This book is about what this means for the workplace and for management.  The proposition offered here is that our organisations need to catch up, and that the "death of deference" that we are seeing elsewhere in society needs to be accelerated in the workplace.

Systems of deference slow down organisational performance.  Deference prevents organisations from learning.  It stops them from being agile, innovative and ethical.  Deference is the enemy of organisational success and it needs to be dismantled so that in its place we can build modern organisations with a new breed of managers and leaders.  This book offers a solution to a problem that belongs in the last century, and a game plan for nothing short of a workplace revolution.

"If deference is dead, this book is about the resurrection of the effective manager in a world where nothing is quite the way it used to be. Powerful and thought-provoking from start to finish." 

-          Jeremy Vine, BBC Presenter and Author

"Never Mind the Bosses is a refreshing type of management book, it advocates that deference to authority figures needs to go if we are to have engaged workforces."

-          Cary L. Cooper, CBE, Distinguished Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University Management School

"An engaging and entertaining romp through the post punk world. By going beyond the boundaries of most business books, Ryde gives us all food for thought about how organisations are, or are not, dealing with a rapidly changing society and workforce."

-          Jo Owen, bestselling author of 'How to Manage' and 'How to Lead'

"If you are looking for a book that will shake up your thinking about how to improve your organization's performance – or worried that your competitors will find it first! – try this one."

-          Professor Dutch Leonard, Harvard Business School & Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government

Chapter 1

A NEW DYNAMIC FOR MODERN MANAGEMENT

Hastening the Death of Deference

This is a ‘management’ book.

It is a book about organisations and how they can be made better – more agile, relevant and higher performing.

It is a book for anyone who is inspired by the possibility of different ways of working: people who see energy, potential and talent being wasted in organisations every day, and want to look at the alternatives. It should be of keen interest to people who lead businesses, or manage others, or shape organisations or who are just plain curious about how to modernise corporations and institutions.

But this is also a book with a heart – a spirit in fact.

On an unprecedented scale, the death of deference is empowering and liberating previously disadvantaged people. It is a force that is changing the way people and institutions interact with one another. It is sweeping the globe with very few cultures left untouched by it, and most being transformed by it. It is a mechanism for liberation and the release of unbounded potential.

Few walks of life are left unaltered. In this book we will look at different examples of this. We will look at the punk music explosion of 1976, the relationship between men and women, the revolutions in the Middle East, the dynamic between doctor and patient, and to old, established and hierarchical cultures found in rapid-growth countries such as China and India. All of these dynamics are imbued not with staidness but with a great sense of deep change with regard to deference.

Our main focus in this book, though, is on the place of work. It seems a good place to look. Well over three billion people in the world go to work each day.¹ Work is what we do. It is where we go. It is the engine that drives economies and learning. It is, if configured well, one of the most important and exhilarating things that we do in our lives.

The argument offered in these pages is that the death of deference is a good thing. The demise of the attitudes and behaviours that keep deference alive is good news – for work, business and for societies. But the proposition entertained in these pages is that this is a death that needs to be hastened, moved forward and accelerated. The sooner we can bring an end to deference, the sooner we can enjoy the benefits. And here and there, in pockets of societies and in parts of organisations across the globe, we can see deference on the decline, and along with it the benefits of new forms of organisation being born. But there is no doubt that, despite the progress being made, our fingers should continue to tighten firmly around the windpipe of deference, to remove a system that, frankly, we no longer have a use for.

But not everyone will necessarily agree with this. We know this.

In the discussions that I have held with people about this concept, it became clear to me, at a very early stage, that the notion of the death of deference is somewhat divisive – not intentionally, of course, but it is an idea that nevertheless tends to divide people into two roughly equal camps.

On the one hand, we find a great deal of enthusiasm and excitement expressed in reaction to the idea. About half of the people we talk to see the death of deference as a good thing, something that corrects the balance between those with power, position and privilege and those without. The enthusiasm often reflects the sentiment that ‘it’s about time’ change occurred – for too long we have submitted to the judgements and decisions of people who don’t necessarily have the answers or our best interests at heart. Deference is seen in these terms as an unwelcome means of control, a mechanism that keeps people in their place.

The other half of people we talk to about the death of deference offer a different, opposing position. To this group the principle of deference is seen as good; it is right that we should defer to people who are in positions of responsibility; after all, they are there because they often have something we don’t, be that expertise or obligations to fulfil, insights or even wisdom. In short, there are people who do in fact know better than we do, and deferring to them is simply the smart thing to do. But this group also sees a natural order of sorts in the execution of deference; and to operate in organisations or societies where deference did not exist would be to call for disorder; this group often conceives of a degree of moral rightness to the principle of deference.

You don’t of course need to decide which camp best expresses your feelings on the subject, and for the purposes of this book you are encouraged above all to withhold judgement, at least for a while. But to give a proper account of the topic, it is important that when talking about deference we share the same understanding of terms. And for those who find themselves wavering between these two opposing perspectives, this definitional contribution may help.

Terms of Deference

The word ‘deferential’ can be traced back to the Latin word deferre, comprising two parts: de, which means ‘down’, and ferre, which means ‘carry’, which taken together refer to the act of carrying oneself down, or bowing down to authority. For the purposes of this discussion, ‘deference’ refers to a behaviour of automatically yielding or submitting to the wishes, judgements or rulings of so-called superiors. Words associated with this process include acquiescence, compliance, obedience, biddability and submission. As we will learn later in the book, this is not a one-way process but in fact represents a form of contract between deferrer and deferred to.

It is important also to be clear on what is not meant by the death of deference, what specifically is not being called for:

• The behaviour of respect, for example, remains a critical value and one that is essential for the conduct of business and human relations. Respect should not die along with deference; this is not what we are asking for.
• The death of deference is not about choosing to devalue knowledge, expertise or experience. If anything, it is about cherishing these qualities to a much greater extent – through the invitation of more, diverse voices into the decision-making process.
• And finally as we hasten the death of deference we are not looking to inspire dissent in relation to every single judgement that might be made by the ‘deferred to’; well, perhaps just every other judgement!

A Quick Summary for Busy People

For organisations, the fundamental problem with systems of deference is that they cause a drag on organisational performance and on the ability to change.

The context for organisations is relevant in considering the contribution of deference.

The modern operating context is characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity; we see this with technological change, economic shifts, generational factors, interdependence between systems (for example banking systems), environmental pressures and so on, all of which place a requirement on companies to be agile and responsive – if nothing else, to keep up. For many years we have talked about this environment but never before has it been so palpably real, and never before has the ambition to survive and thrive depended so much on agility, pace and inventiveness.

The core problem with systems of deference is that they serve to block many of the essential ingredients required to succeed in these circumstances. Deference stands in our way, rather than facilitating the right organisational response.

Systems of deference create ‘them and us’ cultures; they divide rather than unite people within organisations. Importantly, too, they quieten the voices of the deferrers in ways that cause employees to refrain from offering their ideas, their discretionary effort and their emotional commitment. The diversity of voices, ideas and solutions that might otherwise flow through the organisational system become muted and in their place can be found a narrow band of judgements asserted by the most deferred to in the organisation. The more deference there is, the narrower the band of judgements on which organisations rely. Deference acts like the fatty deposits that build up in arteries, restricting the flow of fresh, oxygen-enriched blood across the system.

Furthermore, by concentrating decision-making power, authority and responsibility in the hands of the deferred to, as we witness in so many organisations, the opportunities for broadening and sharing responsibility are significantly reduced. In deferential organisations when the leaders of the organisations stand up and announce the ‘next big thing’, the workers smile and wish them good luck, very often not feeling it is their (the workers’) responsibility.

So it is no surprise during times of change that deference drives acquiescence to the new ways of operating called for by the deferred to, but it does not drive authentic commitment to change. As such we see a behaviour best described as ‘consent and evade’, where employees seeking to avoid challenge or unwelcome scrutiny from the deferred to give indications of their consent for change, but ultimately evade it, a bit like the teenager who is told to wash their hands before dinner only to go upstairs and run the water in the hand basin for as long as it would take, without their hands once getting wet. And not only does this create problems in its own right, it generates difficulties relating to detection. As leaders look across the organisation, they might just see their workers giving the thumbs up as if they were on board, but the phenomenon of ‘consent and evade’ tells a different story.

And as for governance and ethical business, systems of deference have for far too long enabled critical and influential decisions to remain unchecked and unchallenged because the decision-makers are treated with high levels of deference. From examples ranging from Enron/Andersons and the global financial crisis to the British Members of Parliament expenses scandal and the fascinating instance of the CEO of an Indian company who literally invented thousands of non-existent employees to strengthen the company’s figures,² we see how deference insulates decision-makers against appropriate challenge.

In summary, the kind of organisations that high levels of deference create is shown in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 The Kind of Organisation that Deference Creates

Deference is strong	Deference is weak
Hesitant, guarded dialogue	Quick, free exchange of dialogue
A fear of failure	The confidence to innovate
A passing on of responsibility	A shouldering of responsibility
A controlling mindset	An empowering mindset
Ethical inconsistency	Ethical integrity
An illusion of support for change	Authentically supported change
Under-utilised talent	Well-leveraged talent
Division and a ‘them and us’ mindset	A strongly unified organisation

Starting the Change Process

Recognising that deference impedes organisational success is a first-order objective. It is hoped that the remainder of this book will convince you of this.

For those in receipt of deference, this can be a hard point to accept, not least because it implies, correctly, that the associated privileges afforded to the deferred to need to be challenged. The saying ‘turkeys voting for Christmas’ may spring to mind at this point. But this is not only true for the deferred to. Systems of deference for all concerned can provide a rhythm to business life and can be order-creating. They provide a decision-making hierarchy in which we can see our place; they offer us predictability, some comfort and some protection, providing that we fulfil our roles and honour the implied terms of the ‘deference contract’.

The tacit deal regarding systems of deference is that while the deferrers are expected to yield to the judgements of the deferred to and not to challenge their authority, they are in turn expected to fulfil their obligations, for example to take responsibility for the well-being of the deferrers, providing them with guidance, stability and protection. Similarly, as the deferrers are expected to show respect and trust to the deferred to, even endure hardships at their behest and to go the extra mile, the deferred to are accordingly obliged to provide fair treatment, objective, accurate information and absolution should the deferrers err in some way.

Think about how this dynamic is repeated to varying degrees in relations between state and citizen, between parents and children, between organised religion and believers, in patriarchal and ma...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise for Never Mind the Bosses
• Title page
• Copyright page
• PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• Chapter 1 A NEW DYNAMIC FOR MODERN MANAGEMENT
• Chapter 2 MAKE MY DAY, PUNK!
• Chapter 3 THE DEFERENCE CONTRACT
• Chapter 4 THE DRAG EFFECT
• Chapter 5 F**K YOU, I WON’T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME
• Chapter 6 CREATING A NEW DYNAMIC
• Index