IATROGENIC -- THE CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE!

IATROGENIC – THE CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© March 20, 2009

“The wise man has his follies no less than the fool; but herein lies the difference -- the follies of the fool are known to the world, but are hidden from himself; the follies of the wise man are known to himself, but hidden from the world.”

Caleb C. Colton (1780 – 1832), English clergyman

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The winter of 2002, the AQP journal published my piece on “Leadership Manifesto: Typology of Leaderless Leadership.” I identified sixteen leadership behaviors that not only were killing our society'S spirit but also corrupting our institutional behavior, which ultimately impacts us all.

It was my hope that it would lead to discussion and some amelioration of the problem because what was happening then, and continues to happen now would even prove incredulous to Desiderius Erasmus, author of “In Praise of Folly” some five hundred years ago.

No one could write a play for the stage more dubious than the incredible ineptitude of our new President, his Secretary of Treasurer, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and the Congress of the United States in the current economic crisis.

These follies keep compounding as they attempt to put the toothpaste back into the tube with a 90 percent tax on the legitimate but ludicrous bonuses to executives at AIG, a failing corporation given $170 billion in bailout money from the tarp, and then distributing from that bailout money some $165 million in bonuses contracted to be given to a select group of executives.

Everyone knew about these bonuses. Senator Dodd tried to cut them from the $700 billion stimulus bill, but was shouted down, and spinelessly backed down. No courage there.

Now those in charge claim they didn’t know about these bonuses, that is, until taxpayer rage cut through their leaderless leadership.

Such reaction to outrage or decisions after-the-fact is typical of American leadership. The “present panic of now,” as I describe it in one of my books, results in compulsive behavior of a reaction driven society.

We shouldn’t be surprised. We have been so inclined almost from the conception of our Republic. We have perfected crisis management to an art form. We are far better at reacting to our problems than anticipating them. It is then that we display our outrage, citizens and leaders alike. We even had an Iowa senator, my home state, say that these people receiving bonuses should commit suicide. He later said he didn’t mean what he said, which is par for the course. Our leadership rarely says what it means or means what it says, but no one seems to find that absurd but this writer, who continues to remind readers of the fact.

Say what you want, politics notwithstanding, we have no one in charge, and those in charge are no comfort to our prospects. It didn’t start with the present administration. In fact it didn’t commence with the previous administration. That’s the point. It is endemic to our culture.

“Leadership is in a state of retreat bordering on confusion,” I say in this article, “Not only is leadership out-of-date, but out-of-touch with reality,” and I could add “and so are citizens-at-large.”

Here in brief is the typology of leaderless leadership offered in that piece:

(1) Manipulators: They believe everyone has his price. Their weapon is fear.

(2) Frustrated Participants: They suck it up, deny what is happening, and never move until the crisis hits.

(3) Inside Outsiders: Those with special skills are needed but not wanted; leadership never likes to share power. So they find other ways of getting their revenge.

(4) Winning Side Saddlers: Pay and perks justify them going along to get along; being all things to all people, especially those in charge, never rocking the boat, even when its sinking.

(5) Nostalgia Elitists: They long for the way it was, romanticize what never was and treat it as if it was, and keep repeating it until it must have been.

(6) Waiters in the Wing: They study what is happening, who’s up, who’s going down, and step forward at the critical moment to “save their day,” but not necessarily the organization.

(7) Happily in Harness: They wear blinders to what is happening, stay focused on the work at hand, stay optimistic, hope for the best, and go down with the ship, at least in their dreams.

(8) Quiet Soldiers: They can never say “no” to a boss no matter how insane or immoral the demands; they do it because “it’s their job.”

(9) Victims: They see martyrdom as a form of loyalty. They expect to be trusted without being trustworthy, believed without being believable, taken at their word without being credible.

(10) Unbending Idealists: They live in a corporate dream world where the greater good is the corporate good and the ends justify the means. They hold workers to their tasks but don’t see why the same rigor should apply to them. After all, they are in charge.

(11) Adventurers: They see themselves as swashbuckling trendsetters, that is, until everything goes south, then they scurry to find a scapegoat to pin the blame on. They always have such a backup plan.

(12) Spin Doctors: They all have MBA’s which provide them with the language to make bad news seem good, to make setbacks seem advances, and falling revenues as reinvestments in the future.

(13) Reluctant Soldiers: They see things as they are, and remain like the “Quiet Soldier,” silent, secure with their pay, perks and bonuses to be loyal to the end come hell or high water.

(14) Overachievers: They work hard rather than smart, do everything rather than anything specific, deny their panic by constantly being on the go, treat doing and thinking as synonyms, failing to come to terms with their plight until they are burned out.

(15) Messiahs: They convince themselves that they are gifted and can do it alone, that divine intervention is part of their tool kit, and people just must be patient while they perfect their miracles.

(16) Professionals: they see themselves as a breed apart, smarter, wiser, and more qualified than any of their critics. Why should they listen to anyone; what can they tell them that they don’t already know. They are inclined to mention repeatedly how “smart” and “wise” and “gifted” the people around them are, inferring that they by comparison are even more so.

The article also includes ten guidelines for successful leadership. Here they are in brief:

(1) All contributors large and small are essential to an operation. All work is ennobling.

(2) No worker or work is complete within itself, pulling together is critical.

(3) Competitors are not the enemy. Industry rises and falls by shared information.

(4) Technology does not have the luxury of being user friendly. It must be user friendly. When it becomes a toy rather than a tool, technology loses its power.

(5) The best organization is not harmonious. The best organization has no safe hires. The best organization is conflicting with managed conflict the glue holding it together and on course.

(6) All organizations are in a state of dying. Darkness is consuming if new light is not shed on its ailing body. The most insane motto is “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” It is when it isn’t broken but obviously dying that new light should be shined into the darkness. Everything dies. Everything. That includes organizations. The only way to save them is to continually be in the resurrection business by never being comfortable with the status quo. Study competitors, study the market, and study the changing nature of the workforce, study, study, study, and then act!

(7) An organization is not a thing; it is a human group. It is people. People have a spirit. Feeding the spirit is even if not more important than feeding the body. Leadership is primarily about feeding the spirit; management is primarily about feeding the body. They are not the same. Management is of things; leadership is of people. When profits are considered before people, it kills the spirit which signals the ultimate death knell of the organization.

(8) People are programmed to compare and compete. Nothing could be less beneficial to an organization. Awarding one group at the expense of another with appreciation of this or that only compounds the problem. It promotes imitation, cheating, backstabbing and other undesirable behaviors. Research has shown when one group is operating as well as it can, then it is at the expense of another group. Russell Ackoff, a system researcher, puts it bluntly, “When a system is operating as well as it can, none of its parts will be.” Why? Because they are helping each other at the expense of pushing their own envelop. This is counterintuitive to Machine Age thinking but especially true today with the sophisticated workforce that we enjoy.

(9) The vertical structure of the organization is anachronistic, and the role of level on level of managers reporting up the tree is atavistic. An integration of the horizontal with the vertical organization, especially at the level of consequences, is critical to organization success and timely decision making.

(10) Organization culture is critical to any successful organization, and is the most important tool of leadership. Dr. Fisher’s formula applies here:

“The structure of work determines the function of work; the function of work creates the workplace culture; the workplace culture dictates the predominant organization behavior; the dominant organization behavior establishes whether an organization is growing, vegetating, floundering, declining, or expiring."


Somehow, some day, perhaps when I won’t have the benefit of seeing it, we Americans will leave our adolescence and the twentieth century behind, and behave as grown ups, but I see no sign of in the present climate.

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