No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

[Judy Bardwick]

There are two laws I really like: the first, Murphy’s Law says, If anything can go wrong, it will. You can bank on that. The other, Bardwick’s Law of Entitlement says, What ever people get for free stops being a delight and very quickly becomes an entitlement.

Woe befalls the endlessly generous giver who never requires something be earned. Instead of receiving gratitude and love from those they’ve benefited so generously, their free offerings are taken for granted and therefore have no value. At the same time, “What have you done for me lately,” has no limit and is never satisfied.

Dear Reader, you may well be wondering where I’m going with this.
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If you’re a really generous parent, grandparent, teacher or friend, you may be wondering
if this is directed at you. The answer is Yes, beware of unfettered generosity, but the real target of this message is organizations and their Human Resource Departments.

There’s a very old and widespread belief that if employees are happy their gratitude will be equaled only by their productivity and retention rates. In other words, as morale climbs, performance will soar. As a result of this heartfelt belief, Human Resource Departments have generated a long list of things that will make employees happy. This point if view is so widely accepted that virtually every medium and large organization give most of these things to all of their people.

There is nothing controversial or debatable in these offerings so I call this list of “give-aways” a Mother’s Day and Apple Pie list. Every thoughtful and conscientious organization offers some variation of the following and (in no particular order they include), competitive compensation and benefits; tuition and time for school; opportunities to improve and use your skills, stirring mission and value statements; knowing what’s expected of you; admirable and believable leadership; a culture emphasizing transparency, trust and inclusion, flex time and parental leave. I could easily create a longer list but this is enough for the reader to get the picture.

Alas, these offerings which are widely believed to motivate and gladden the heart of employees, generate almost no significant pay-off for the organizations which offer them. Among my favorite pieces of information in my recent book, One Foot Out the Door, are the sets of results on pages 92 & 93 that give us the percent of employees who find these working conditions or forms of recognition significantly valuable to them. A glance at the data swiftly reveals how much is given – and how much is taken for granted.

In 2006 the international consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide released two sets of data from their WorkUSA 2000 study of “Employee Commitment and the Bottom Line”.

Gaining Employee Trust Relies on Seven Key Factors
1. Management explains the reasons behind major decisions - 10%
2. Management works to gain support for the business direction - 10%
3. Management strives to motivate employees to high performance - 10%
4. The most qualified employees are promoted - 10%
5. Management acts on employee’s input - 9%
6. Management strives for job security - 9%
7. Employees are encouraged to participate and be involved - 8%
8. All other factors - 34%

Key Drivers of Employee Commitment
1. Employees trust senior management - 14%
2. Employees are able to use their skills on the job -14%
3. Rewards and recognition are competitive with other firms - 11%
4. Jobs are reasonably secure - 11%
5. The company’s products and services are of a high quality - 10%
6. There is little stress related to work - 7%
7. The company’s business conduct is honest and based on integrity - 7%
8. All other factors - 28%

Would these percentages be higher if we just kept giving employees more rewards and even better working conditions? The answer is, no. There are several reasons why there’s no bang for the organizational buck: first, the same things are available for everyone irrespective of what anyone wants, and those things are given and not earned. The result is they are not valued. Second, what really matters for an individual is determined by what that person most needs or wants now.

I am not advising a major take-away of things employees take for granted. That would be an invitation for active disengagement with performance plummeting. No, this is a warning not to a big pay-off from working conditions or rewards
 that are taken for granted.
 that everyone gets.
 that are not earned in any way.
 that have been in place for a long time.
 that are just like those offered by every other company.

On the other hand, Do expect a big pay-off when working conditions and rewards demonstrate the organization’s view that this individual is a major asset and working conditions and rewards are
 customized to meet that individual’s preferences or needs
 customized outcomes that are earned through performance.
 customized outcomes that are specifically targeted to individuals
 customized outcomes that reflect the specific needs and priorities of employees in this company.
 Customized outcomes are a commitment for a year or two and then priorities and needs are reassessed.

Many employees in many companies in many countries are discontent and fearful because the changes which are occurring are disruptive, swift and major. One of those critical changes in many workplaces is that employees who used to be regarded as key assets have become mere costs to be cut. That basic attitude does not foster employee commitment to the organization or engagement with its work.

But hundreds of studies tell us that strong positive feelings of commitment and engagement are the key to success, specifically financial success. Gaining those feelings of commitment and engagement requires responding to employees as individuals who really matter to the organization. One of the key ways that organizations can achieve the key motivators of commitment and engagement is by meeting that person’s most important needs or preferences at this time.

The task is much easier than it sounds because at any time there are relatively few categories of things that people really want. What management needs to do is not hard: managers need to know a lot about the work their employees do and a little about their life outside of work. All that takes is asking questions and really listening to the answers. The goal is to convince individuals by how the organization behaves toward them that they and their work really matter.

That’s it; the magic key to success.
For more information about this and related subjects, please visit my website: http://www.judithmbardwick.com

[Wayne Turmel]

Dame Judy, wise words. As you know the thing I keep muttering is..." it's simple, but simple don't mean easy".

Keep up the good work and don't let the weasels get you down.

[Terrence Seamon]

Judy,
What you have said here --"...strong positive feelings of commitment and engagement are the key to success, specifically financial success. Gaining those feelings of commitment and engagement requires responding to employees as individuals who really matter to the organizaton"-- is nothing less than a Commitment and Engagement Manifesto!

Terry

[Judy Bardwick]

Hi Terry,
Thank you so much for your lovely remarks about my blog. You and I share a passion to make engagement and commitment an executive manifesto!
Judy

[Robert Morris]

Hello Judy:

Thank you for sharing so many excellent insights as well as items of information.

FYI, when interviewed by William F. Buckley, Mrs. Murphy asserted that her husband was an optimist.

Re the topic:

1. Many good deeds are punished.
2. Others are ignored.
3. Still others are resented.

So, I think we have to decide why we are doing a good deed.

To be thoughtful, helpful, supportive, etc. for its own sake without expectation of appreciation, reward, recognition, gratitude, quid pro quo, fine.

Otherwise, we probably deserve whatever the negative response may be.

Years ago, A.J. Cronin wrote a novel (Magnificent Obsession) about a doctor who, after a traumatic experience, decided to devote the remainder of his life to doing whatever he could to help others...with only one condition: That the beneficiary never reveal his identity as the source of provenance. In my opinion, that's a simple but sensible guideline for acts of generosity.

Best regards.

[Nels Pedersen]

Judy,

Enjoyed your post tremendously and I hope you continue to add your valuable insights to our network. As both a business leader and a parent I can't help but agree with you on how unmanaged entitlements go through the process of benefit and on to detriment. This entitlement trap is one of the easiest for the organization to fall into but of course I also wouldn't advocate not providing wonderful rewards and working conditions for employees. I believe the key is consistent communication and diplomatic reminders to raise awareness that these things are not, in fact, entitlements. It's the leaders role to make sure that employees "look around" and evaluate how great their organization stacks up against others in the industry or the business world at large. Sometimes the grass is greenest directly under your own feet.

- Nels

[Judy Bardwick]

Thank you, Nels!

Just as an aside let me note that in my book about Entitlement in corporations and government, Danger in the Comfort Zone, Chapter 10, “Making it Personal”, takes Entitlement into the realm of family. The psychological dynamics are essentially identical.

I’d add that communication and reminders help to alleviate Entitlement but are too weak in themselves to get a major reversal of expectations and behavior. Getting rid of Entitlement is really, really hard for the simple reason that people love it.

In my experience what’s needed is a massive change toward needing to earn what you get. Another way to phrase it is to create a culture that is driven by results.

One of the really cute ways to express this was given to me by an IBM employee. There’s an equation, he told, from physics:

W = F X D.
Work equals force – (the effort involved) – times distance – (the amount something is moved).

In an Entitlement culture you get rewarded for “F” – trying.

In an Earning culture you get rewarded for “D” – for actually moving something.

When I lecture on the subject I use a drawing of a person pushing hard against a huge rock. The question becomes, did the rock move? If it didn’t, no work has been accomplished.

The CEO of Mead Corporation installed a really big rock in the lobby of the headquarters building. Everyone in Mead was focused on…Move the Rock! That was great communication and a marvelous reminder.

[Judy Bardwick]

While my blog was addressed primarily to the HR community, Bob Morris’ response opened my eyes to the whole issue of the motive behind the good deed which, I confess, I hadn’t thought about in the context of standard organizational give-aways.

Bob, as I got to thinking about wretched outcomes following acts of good intentions I realized that in addition to Murphy’s Law, there’s also: Your catastrophe can always become someone else’s opportunity.

Readers may remember that San Diego County had really terrible wildfires in October, 2007. The results were catastrophic as wide swathes of the county were literally burned to the ground.

We had had that same kind of misery, people losing their homes and all of its contents to wildfires in 2003. In light of the previous experience and with the most humane of motives, in 2007 San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders and the City Council created a government effort to provide a centralized program to remove the debris and give homeowners as seamless a solution as possible.

Almost a year later (!), on August 4th, 2008, the “San Diego Union-Tribune” reported that the 2 companies hired by the city, A.J. Diani Construction Company and Granite Construction Company, had charged an average of $83,400 per home site which was roughly three times the original estimate of $28,000 and was much more than what private contractors hired by homeowners had charged. Chris Skillern, for example was charged $224,506 by the city contractors to clear away the debris of his devastated 5,000 square foot home while his next door neighbor was charged $77,693 by a private contractor to clear away his destroyed 7,000 square foot home.

On August 5th the “Union-Tribune” summed it all up this way: No good deed goes unbilled.

Bob Morris’ remarks also reminded me that We never know when our best behaviors will create envy and malice.

One of my oldest friends in San Diego was secretly very rich for decades until he was discovered by Forbes magazine as one of the 400 wealthiest Americans. At about the same time that he first appeared in the Forbes list he made a very large contribution to a major institution in San Diego which renamed itself after the donor.

Not long after these events became public, my friend’s house was invaded by a robber who tied up he and his wife and tazzed them both. Very scared, they were held prisoner for 5 hours, scared and unable to satisfy the robber who insisted on the immediate delivery of a large sum of cash.

The would-be robber who had been convinced that these very rich people would certainly have huge amounts of cash instantly available in their house ultimately gave up and left. It would have been very easy for the outcome to have ended very differently and tragically. As it was, it was tragic enough.

Being invisible in some ways may often be a healthy life style.

Many thanks Bob for widening the scope of I wish it weren't so but good deeds do get punished.