#409 Proportionality and Leadership - an article by Niels Brabandt

Proportionality and Leadership
an article by Niels Brabandt

Was that proportionate?

Managers often ask themselves this question after making a decision. Either positively proportionate, for example, regarding a reward or a promotion, but equally negatively proportionate regarding sanctions and the consequences drawn. If proportionality is not maintained, this quickly takes its toll. Over the years, employees have developed a sense of when people are being favoured or treated unfairly. It is, therefore, always important to find the right balance, but how can this always be found?

Cases

Imagine the following three cases to give the whole topic a practical framework. It is important that you make a decision after each case as to how you would deal with it before you read the resolution afterwards.

Case 1: an employee approaches you. This person would like to have plants in the office because they improve the atmosphere. How do you deal with this?

Case 2: You are told by an employee that there is a draught in the office. Not to an extreme extent or in such a way that it would cause sickness, but still noticeable. In summer, this may be quite refreshing, but in winter, it is simply too cold. This person would like the windows, which are over 20 years old, to be sealed or replaced. How do you decide?

Case 3: An employee from the warehouse approaches you. They would like free bottled water for the employees. This aspect would be particularly helpful in the hot summer months. What do you say to this?

The solution: all three cases happened in real life, and all three cases come from different organisations, companies, regions and countries. In cases one and two, the managers decided that both plants in the office and the sealing of the windows should be included in the target agreement. If the target is achieved, there will be plants or sealed windows. In case three, free water was provided. A sign was then put up on the water boxes saying 'Only for full-time employees'.

Do you think the decisions are proportionate?

Proportionality

Three aspects are particularly important when it comes to proportionality: suitability, necessity and appropriateness.

Appropriateness examines whether the decision can promote the objective. Providing an office without draughts is already regulated by law. Using plants as motivation in sales is a questionable to hopeless method. Encouraging people to work longer hours with water is also not a promising, let alone value-orientated approach. This aspect has, therefore, not been addressed in any of the three cases.

In the case of necessity, it is checked whether there is no other, milder or more effective means. As mentioned above, the legislation already stipulates that this situation must be remedied in the case of draughts. Plants could simply be purchased. Linking these to sales targets raises big questions about the suitability of the sales manager. There are many ways to motivate people to work harder. Water is not one of those options. So in this respect, too, those managers have failed in all cases.

Appropriateness analyses whether the benefit of the measure is appropriate in relation to the intervention or requirement. Making people work harder in sales in order to fulfil legal requirements is unacceptable. Plants are also disproportionate here as a result with regard to the requirement. Withholding water from people if they work less than full-time is simply unacceptable.

Thus, in all three cases, management and leaders fail.

You can find more case details and justifications in this week's videocast and podcast; see the links below.

Implementation

Implementing and maintaining proportionality in everyday life is no simple matter. On the one hand, you can, of course, hope for empathy from your managers. However, it is also known that, according to scientific evidence, empathy does not increase but decreases the higher the hierarchical level. A distinction is made between socialised empathy and learned empathic behaviour. You can achieve a great deal with professional support for your managers in the second aspect at the latest. Please make absolutely sure that a professional coach or consultant has sufficient real-life experience as well as appropriate qualifications in the area of scientific content. Experience alone is not enough.

However, perspective is particularly important. Most managers are not aware of their own privileges. The story of the person who has worked their way up the ladder is something that everyone would like to claim, no matter how far removed from reality that story is. Provide professional support to ensure that your managers see, receive and experience sufficient perspective. By experiencing those perspectives, much more attention is paid to proportionality in the manager's development and employee interaction.

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More on this topic in this week's podcast: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify

For the videocast and podcast transcript, read below.

Is excellent leadership important to you?

Let's have a chat: NB@NB-Networks.com

Contact: Niels Brabandt on LinkedIn

Website: www.NB-Networks.biz

Niels Brabandt is an expert in sustainable leadership with more than 20 years of experience in practice and science.

Niels Brabandt: Professional Training, Speaking, Coaching, Consulting, Mentoring, Project & Interim Management. Event host, MC, moderator.

Videocast / Podcast Transcript

Niels Brabandt

Proportionality. And for a very good reason, I didn't say, commensurate ability. I didn't want to sound too much like a lawyer right here. We're talking about leadership and if decisions are balanced, if they are appropriate, if they are reasonable, if it's a balanced approach. Commensurate very quickly makes it very official. This is a topic which was brought forward to me, due to a large expo we recently had, and I was booked as speaker, delivered six speeches in two days. Very important is that I will I heard some real world cases where I really quadruple checked if this happened because I couldn't believe what I heard.

And we're going to talk about these cases today. By the way, all of these cases happen, while at the same time people say we have talent shortage and we have a shortage of workforce. And by the way, if you're now listening to us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, far enough to do that, many of you know we are now also available on YouTube, started the YouTube channel now, so you have a video and everything on top of that as well. So feel free to join us there as well. When we are now talking about proportionality, there are a couple of things we need to talk about, and these are the cases. I just give you let let's assume you're a leader or you want to be a leader, and I now give you three tasks, three jobs. So we have certain cases, and I give you three cases.

Case number one is an employee, approaches you, says it's it's it's an employee that works works in in sales for you. And that person says, well, I would like to have some plants in the office. Is it possible that I just buy some plants and it looks a bit nicer, make makes the air fresh. It's it's it's just nice to have plants in the office. And by the way, there's scientific evidence to that that plants in the office help. I do not have plants in the office or at my home for a very simple reason. I travel quite frequently, and I I wouldn't do these plants any favor.

And if I want to keep them alive, I need to install, like, quite reasonably complicated mechanism, which also add to my carbon footprint unnecessarily. So that's the reason why I do not have them. I don't have anything against plans. I actually like when there are some plans around, but someone needs to take care of them. In in companies, however, that's guaranteed. Someone someone will take care of them. And some teams that and and some companies that even have planned teams.

So for example, when you know Xyng, Xyng is the German equivalent to LinkedIn. They have an own plant team there. Four people only taking care of plants. So when we talk about the cases, I give you three cases. Case number one is the plant case. Case number two is an employee approaches you and says, you know, I'm sitting in this office, and I really like it here. However, the windows are a bit old.

So I feel passage, door of air. There's just air flowing through slightly as soon as the wind goes a bit towards the building. It's not really too cold. So you do not have anyone calling sick to it. Due due to it, you don't have any days where people call in sick because they said, oh, I have a stiff neck or anything. But people say, well, especially one person says, I I don't like it. Could you please change it?

That that's case number two. And case number three is someone from your production facility approaches you and says, we talked amongst, the workers we have here. And especially as, summers get hotter and hotter and it gets warmer very quickly and earlier than it usually did, we really would appreciate if we had free water if we had free water in our production facility, just available to everyone, not for taking it home, just to drinking it during during working hours. And now just think, what would you do? If someone says, I want to have plants in the office. I want to have that the windows are actually tight, that no air flows through, and I want to have water.

Here's the solution. What happened? If you're not sitting, maybe you should sit maybe you should sit down right now. So in the case of plants, that leader said, I'm going to make an agreement with you. And if you you probably know that sometimes you sit down with, your leader usually once a year, and then you, you basically talk about what are the goals we are we are going to achieve next year. You probably talk about, which goals financially, which goals regarding clients. So you have a certain agreement where you agree on objectives.

Objectives and key results, okay, are so you have a target agreement. And he said, I put it into your target agreement. When you reach a goal, you get plants. You can probably now think of the reaction of that person. You shouldn't be surprised that your Glassdoor review section isn't too great. In this case, it was Kununu, because it was a German company located in Dortmund. So you get plans when you reach your goals.

That's one option what you can do. Maybe not the preferred one. We're gonna do we are going to to discuss it in a minute. The second one with the window. The window is not tight. Same thing. It was the sales department, and, the leader said, if you reach your goals, we're going to, make the windows tight.

But only if you reach your goals. Otherwise, everything stays as it is because and that is something I quote here.

No one complained before. No one ever complained. It worked so far. So why should there be a problem right now? Okay then. So you get your windows tightened, no air flowing through when you reach your sales goals. Interesting. That's a term I learned in The UK to say that.

As a northern German, believe me, I would have a very different answer. Very, very different answer. However, the third one is the one where I really had to, had to check if so someone someone showed me pictures of this. So what the boss said here is they said, okay. Here, free water's a good idea. I'll do that.

So that's the good thing. So they said, cool.

Free water is now available. Free water was there, and then you suddenly saw a huge wall where all these caskets of water are there, bottles to take away. However, there was a sticky note, an a four page on the front of all the caskets, all the bottles, where it said, for full time employees only. That's one way how to root it. Hey. So, they said, we want to encourage people to work more full time and see this as a benefit when they were asked, why do you only give it away for for full time employees? And as someone who's self employed, I work a lot of hours, long hours, and then I chose to do so, and and I like to do so.

I am not complaining here. However, we need to we need to check for science here. When you say, anyone who does not work full time doesn't get free water, you assume that people probably out of laziness do not work full time. And usually, you put another disadvantage on women and minorities when you do that. You usually have people who have a good reason why they do not work full time. Only because they have children and in most households still, the woman takes care of the children, or maybe there's a family member sick, so they can't work full time. You're punishing people for reasons which are, in most cases, beyond their control.

Hardly ever hardly ever you will have someone who says, yeah, I work part time because I'm I just inherit a lot of money, and I have so much money. I just need to do something. That's why I work some hours. These cases exist, and we all know these cases, but we cannot make the exception the rule. And also when you have one person that does that, n equals one is no evidence as Frank Espiritis from Harvard Business School always says. So very important is we now have to talk about were these reactions proportioned? And you probably will say all of these reactions were less than ideal.

Well, we agree on that. However, that's not enough. We need to talk about what are the facts here. So how can I see if any kind of reaction because this is all about bonification, so someone gets more? But you can also have a reaction where you say you need to punish someone. So you need to sanction someone. And how do you make a reaction proportionate when you sanction someone?

The first one, you have to talk about is the reaction you have suitable. So does it achieve to support the goal? So for example, when you say someone's coming late and you write them up, you give them a warning letter, does that help to make them arrive on time? Most likely, yes, because they will see. Otherwise, they lose their job, and they will probably correct their behavior. Does someone go harder on their sales goal when you give them plans? I'm not gonna make big assumption here, but no.

So not not suitable. Is someone motivated by working harder towards a sales goal when and and then you make the windows tighter? Well, when there's a medical necessity but, look, this is in most countries, even in the English speaking world, you need to create a safe space. Safety and security is not up for grabs and not up for negotiation. So simply saying you make tight windows part of a sales game, no. So is it suitable here? Morally ethically not, legally not as well.

With the plants, you're probably legally on the safe side because no one can force you to have plants. But morally ethically, you're still wrong there. And the third one, is it suitable that you only give water to full time employees? Let's face it. No. It's not. Because you're punishing people who are already on the on the more difficult end end end of life here. Okay. That's number one.

So the suitability. Second one is the necessity. It's the necessity so is there nothing else, no other option that you could do? So for for example, you could say, hey. When you want to have plants here, but plants are too expensive or maybe we we don't have people who take care. We tried this before, so we get plastic plants. You could say maybe they are cheaper, which by the way, they are usually not.

And also talking about carbon footprint, usually that's not the greatest idea. So the necessity of making plants a part of your sales goal, I was I'm still go with a no here, about the windows, tighter windows. Is that a necessity for a sales goal? Absolutely not. And water only for full time employee, is it necessary? When you now say we are financially on the brink of existence. We will go bankrupt if we will give water away to anyone. And when you can prove that you are almost bankrupt, but you can save the company when you only give water to full time employees.

So first, you should question your existence. You should question your business existence. You should question your business model. You should question all of your spendings. But when you did all that, probably people have an understanding, but the real necessity is still a no to me here. And, the third one is the reasonableness. So when we talk about is it reasonable, is the imprec proportionate to the objective?

And isn't it an over so especially when you sanction someone, isn't it an overly strain to a person, an organization, an employee? Isn't there another option available? Is it reasonable to make plans part of a sales goal? Maybe when you want to motivate elementary school pupil, but they don't work in sales.

That might be a thing. So, for example, I remember when I went to elementary school, we had the clean challenge. So when the classroom stays clean every single day, we got chocolate afterwards. That's something you definitely wouldn't find anywhere in school today. So when we kept the classroom clean for four weeks straight and the and the staff checked every single day, cleaning staff checked because they, of course, did the in-depth cleaning, the hygienic cleaning, and everything. And, we were one of two classes that actually got the chocolate. I don't know what you would get today, probably something else.

But that was a motivation for us because we didn't we usually don't get chocolate at school back then. And today, you wouldn't get it at all, most likely. However, making a salesperson go harder, for for plants. No. People will just think you don't invest in any kind of environment. Is it reasonable not to invest in tight I know that windows are expensive. Anyone knows.

I remember when we had an office, we rented it for a reason and we had windows which need to be exchanged. And the the bills that came in were so high, but the landlord had to pay it, and we paid higher rent in return. So is it is it reasonable to say windows only when you meet a sales goal? No. And is it reasonable to say water only for full time employees?

Factually speaking, it's not. So you see here a lot of very problematic aspects. So the question is how do you make it better, and how do you implement that? So let's we always, you know, we always talk about how to make things better here. And the first thing is you can, of course, check the empathy. The then now there's one very valid point where people will come up with. They will say, we we talk about leaders here. Right? The higher the leadership level, the lower the empathy.

And there's scientific evidence to that. We usually distinguish between two aspects, empathy, which is the real empathy that you have, which you grew up with. It's it's a social trait that is given to you or not given to you depending on how you grew up. And, can you have too much empathy? Yes. And then you'll probably shy away from necessary hard decisions. However, can you have too little empathy? Absolutely. Yes. And then you make, poly numbers based decisions which do not make sense on the ethically, morally, or soft skill side of the people game.

And that's also very important here. So when you say empathy is a crucial part, always check we always check we always distinguish between between empathy and empathic behaviour. Empathic behaviour can be learned. So when you say empathy is not too high, I've been a year long long long years I've been a referee in in football for the American CS soccer. Referee, especially when they are up in higher leagues, which I was, then usually don't have high empathy because you have to put the rules through if you like it or not. So with the empathy, be aware of the fact that you need to check for empathy. And when you know that your empathy isn't high, get some guidance.

That's what I did as well. Guidance can be internally and externally. I had amazing mentors during my business life. I still have a mentor today, and my mentor now is way over 70 still. Not not only a mentor, but also a great friend. And the guidance they can give you is invaluable. A good mentoring program here can help you need guidance in different in different steps of your life because sometimes you most likely will say, I probably have the data and I can make a decision on the data side, but not really sure if that covers everything and hint, it usually doesn't.

I'm not saying data is irrelevant. Data driven decision making is very important. However, when you deal with people, always be aware of that. There's a people side, and you have to deal with a people side as well. And the third aspect with the implementation is and that is something where I always get a huge row in the audience is, perspective. Be aware of be aware that we all have a certain perspective, and this perspective usually does not include our privileges. And I give you just my example.

I grew up in a very small village in Northern Germany, and you could and I now could say, well, I worked my way up. Now London, Zurich, you know, you see it on Instagram and whatnot. So I could say I had just worked my way up, but that's just not the correct story if you look into science. So first question, when you grew up, did you grow up in an intact household? So your parents weren't divorced. So congratulations, you're already in the privileged 49%. When you are white and male, you're already high up a ladder.

When you grew up in a in a so called first world country, an industrialized nation, in a democracy. And when you probably have parents who had either academic degrees by themselves or at least they saw the the value of education for you, that is privilege left, right, and center. And very often, we put this behind because we like the story. We like the story of I worked my way up, and I did everything by everyone likes this story. It's storytelling to the core. However, perspective includes that you need to reflect, a good perspective at least. So when you do not reflect on what you did and you do not have external coaches, so for example, I have a coach myself, I'm a coach myself, and these coaches can give you good perspective.

Seminars can give you good perspective. Science itself can give you an excellent perspective. When I, for the first time, heard about unconscious biases, I said, no. I can't believe this is true because I worked my way up. Didn't have any privileges. And looking into unconscious having professional training, coaching, mentoring on that, I knew about the privileges I had. I am probably not hyperprivileged like a billionaire's son.

However, still, in in global comparison, I had privileges if I like it or not. And these are part of my life and part of my game. Check for your leaders because quite often quite often, you have leaders in organization and organizations who come from a privileged background. And the privileged background usually does not include taking the perspective of of less privileged people and maybe see what really drives them. So that gives you the best way how to implement this. Very important now is when you want to check for empathy, guidance and perspective, do this professionally. We still have to stick to one aspect which is shocking enough.

More than 80% of all leaders did not have any kind of formal qualification or educational leadership. CMI, Chartered Management Institute, these were the ones that found this out with an international study. You would never give anyone any job without proper qualification and experience on the matter. And with leadership, you simply say, go for it. We do not care. That's what you communicate. Give people professional training, coaching on the aspects that we mentioned here, and then they will make better decisions, more sustainable decisions, and the decisions will be way better regarding proportionality.

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