We have a problem, speaking plainly and simply; this problem is that a truth has been bent to escape responsibility. Tribus (n.d.) was plain and stated:
“WARNING: In presenting the reasons for change, the leader should accept the responsibility for whatever is wrong. Remember Juran’s rule:
WHENEVER THERE IS A PROBLEM 85% OF THE TIME, IT IS IN THE SYSTEM, ONLY 15% OF THE TIME WILL IT BE THE WORKER [emphasis in original].”
Please allow me to note that I have regularly advocated that Juran underestimated and personally have found that 90-95% of the time, the problem is the process, not the workers. This is my opinion, and I am not here to convince you but merely to help clarify Juran’s rule and provide some clarity on the writings of Tribus (n.d.) as well as build foundational understanding.
The Situation
A client company has a problem where managers are not holding their people to productivity standards. Deep diving into the situation, we find several fundamental issues, in no particular order:
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- Human Resources tells operations what production goals can be.
- No production goal can be set where 75% of the workers cannot easily meet the goals set.
- Goals cannot be changed without HR approval, a lengthy research process, and a legal team review.
- No productivity goal is published. Feeder metrics, KPIs, and so forth are not communicated or standardized.
- No standard work crosses from one geographic location to another.
- Facility leaders might receive training in other facilities, but the training is broken and disjointed, and the regional managers charged with holding leaders to a standard lack standards and feeder metrics to hold facility leadership accountable across regional areas.
- Currently, no region or facility is meeting any goal regularly or uses a process that can be replicated.
Interestingly, this situation has existed for more than 15 years, and none in higher management remember a time when this situation was different. But, every manager will quote a version of Juran’s rule to explain why they are hunting for operational processes to review and change.
Conflict vs. Contention
At its most fundamental level, conflict is about helping spur growth and development and bringing about change in an organized and logical manner. However, I cannot stress this enough; conflict is NOT contention. Conflict is not born of pride and a desire to feel better about yourself through violence. Conflict can be observed in a disagreement or difference in opinion, but conflict does not include emotional hyperbole (pride). Conflict should be about mental disturbances spurred by people seeking greater ideas and ideals, personal growth, or team development. Does conflict lead to contention? Yes, but only because pride entered into the disagreement, emotions were injected, and desires to be right at any cost dictated, it is time for violence.
Let me be perfectly frank, contention and conflict are not the same. While the terms are close, they are distinct and tell different sides of the same story. First, contention is an act of striving or an assertion. Contention is a violent effort to obtain or protect something vehemently! There is effort, struggle, and exertion in contention; there are violent efforts, and the core of contention is pride. Pride breeds animosity, animosity breeds struggle, and struggle is contention, where pride demands that violence is acceptable to achieve the desired end goal. When contending, “The ends justify the means.”
Contention is animosity personified into action, effort, and desires become evident as contention unfolds. We cannot forget these facts about contention. Consider the following; I went to work in a hostile atmosphere; due to a contract signed, I could not quit and find a new job, and reassignment was not going to happen. Jealousy and pride entered because I was very good at my job, and violence followed like the sun rising after a moonless night. Contention was born and festered, violence was perpetrated against me, and the violence was acceptable to the organizational leaders as it gave them feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction.
The violence was justified because I was “too good” at my job, made “decisions above my paygrade,” and “I needed to be taught humility.” The result was four disastrous years of struggle, incredible stress levels, and mental torture, with physical acts of violence thrown in to spice up the environment. I am not bemoaning my fate nor holding myself up as an example of anything, merely hoping to convey that contention stunted organizational growth in everyone unlucky enough to experience this organization during this period. Contention is pride expressed through violence and justified to fit the individual’s desires.
Conflict is a tool; like all tools, it can build, enhance, strengthen, and create when used appropriately. If the tool is improperly used, destruction, damage, and chaos are spawned. Conflict happens; what a person chooses to do with that conflict and how that person considers conflicting occurrences is how the labels “good,” “bad,” “valuable,” “beneficial,” etc., are applied. McShane and Von Gilnow (2004, p. 390) postulated, “conflict as beneficial [when] intergroup conflict improves team dynamics, increase cohesiveness, and task orientation. [C]onditions of moderate conflict, motivates team members to work more efficiently toward goals increasing productivity.” The sentiment regarding conflict as a tool and beneficial is echoed throughout the research of Jehn (1995). Jehn (1995) reflected that the groups researched labeled the conflict as beneficial, good, bad, etc. Based on the group’s dynamics and the conflicts faced and settled, the groups formed an integrated model for organizational conflict. Essentially, how the conflict is approached and used by the team members individually and collectively dictates how beneficial the conflict is for the team and the organization.
Rao (2017) built upon previous researchers’ shoulders, perceiving conflict being a tool, and provided vital strategies for leaders to employ conflict. Rao (2017) provided that conflict builds character, whereas crisis defines character” [p. 93]. Rao (2017) recognized that conflict labels are an individual choice. In organizational conflict, one team could label the conflict as valuable and beneficial, while another department could label that same conflict as damaging and horrible. When the conflict in an organization has disparate labels, understanding why conflict is disparately evaluated remains more important than changing the label. Important to note, conflict is not competition, although occasionally used synonymously, there are important and distinct differences, important enough for a different article.
Thompson (2008) raised significant points regarding conflict, beginning with a real-life example of how conflict spurred organizational change and growth for the H. J. Heinz Co. Thompson (2008) calls those who actively work to avoid conflict as those taking “trips to Abilene;” included in those making trips to Abilene are those who take conflict personally and choose to become offended, as well as those who choose not to see conflict as a method of ignoring conflict. Thomas (1992) again captured how individual choices about the valuation of conflict open or close the door to the productive use of conflict. Ignoring conflict, avoiding conflict, and other strategies of not facing conflict form the most dangerous people to be around, for when conflict grows beyond a point where it can no longer be ignored or avoided, that conflict that can destroy people, places, and things.
Thomas (1992) echoes Jehn (1995), Lencioni (2002), and Thompson (2008) in declaring the distinction between conflict as a process and the structure in which the conflict process occurred is critical to how beneficial the conflict will be for the team, business, or society. Consider, for a moment the structure of the organizational environment. Conflict is the mental thinking, adherence to operating procedures, and individuals working who become the instigating factor, which threatens what is known or done at the current time. Hence, Thomas (1992) provided a keen insight into conflict as a tool, purposeful initiation of a process (conflict) to improve a structure (organizational environment).
When people recognize the power of conflict and purposefully employ conflict, everyone receives the potential to improve through conflict (Lencioni, 2002). Thus, conflict continues to be a tool, nothing more and nothing less. The disparities between organizational conflict labels are critical to understanding the chasm between teams evaluating conflict as the process and business structure. The gap in understanding conflict’s results can create inhibitions to future organizational conflict and create unnecessary additional conflict processes, all while undermining the organizational structure.
Tribus – Changing the Corporate Culture
Juran’s rule is prescient but based on several foundational situations underpinning their understanding; the following applies regardless of whether the organization is building a learning society or merely keeping the money tap flowing.
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- Operations, and by extension, operational goals, productivity standards, and processes for producing a product or service, are the sole domain of operations personnel. Does this preclude Human Resources from having a seat at the operations table; NO! Having HR dictate operational goals to operations is akin to having a bullet tell a shooter how to aim.
- Training is a process. Training requires standards to judge performance as a means to declare training exceeded. However, the quality of training, and the proof of trained personnel, is not an HR function, nor is the trainer the sole person involved in judging the efficacy of producing trained personnel.
- Organizational hierarchies are a process, the business culture is a process, learning is not training, and both learning and training are processes but have two different controlling entities; accountability and responsibility are a cultural extension of the process of organizing people into a functioning business organization.
Consider the fibers of an interwoven rope. Each fiber is twisted with other fibers, then these twists of fibers are turned into more twists, repeated until eventually building a finished rope. The same goes for these preceding foundational aspects. Operational principles make, like many fibers twist, into a rope that can secure a multiple hundred-ton ship to a pier. How the ropes are used is an operational process, but the core of the ropes are these essential aspects.
Some have argued, to their demise, that too many companies with this mindset are suffering from silo-mentality; when the obverse is true. Each department of a functioning business organization relies upon processes similar to these foundational fibers. Operations managers should not go into another business unit and expect to use the same tools from successful operations in those different business units.
For example, while I have been a successful operations manager, the tools I use in leading software teams are decidedly not the same tools I would employ on a production floor, even though both business units are expected to produce a product. The people are different, their approaches to problems are different, and the environments conducive to product delivery are dynamically opposed. Similarly, the tools HR would use to solve production issues are not opposed but definitely not employed similarly to those used in troubleshooting a problem in legal or accounting.
Juran understood these foundational situations, Tribus understood these foundational situations, and the best corporate leaders understand these foundational situations. However, Tribus made clear something dynamic, leadership is not management, and management never achieves anything. The dichotomies between leadership and management could not be more explicit in today’s business operations.
Tribus (n.d.) calls upon the words of Homer Sarasohn, stating [emphasis in original]:
“THE LEADER MUST, HIMSELF, BE AN EXAMPLE OF THE CHARACTERISTICS HE WOULD LIKE TO SEE IN HIS FOLLOWERS.”
“Managers must practice what they preach.”
“DON’T SAY, “FOLLOW ME; I’M BEHIND YOU ALL THE WAY”
(IT MAKES EVERYONE GO IN CIRCLES).”
Application
What do we find in my client; managers who first do not know the work their operational employees do. Managers who are disconnected by good jobs to the point they never engage in the better and best jobs their positions of trust demand. The managers are not led but are managed and never were trained for their current positions. These three items are why the client company is a dumpster fire of potential (blue money), where the bottom line evaporates, and nobody can explain why. However, like in the Shakespearian play, “Much Ado About Nothing,” a lot of noise is made but goes nowhere fast!
Unfortunately, the much ado about nothing is worsened, not improved, by Kaizen, Six Sigma, Agile, and Lean efforts at process improvement. The core problems are considered “untouchable,” “too dynamic,” or “too extensive” ever to be improved upon, and the new manager settles to change an operational process instead of core problems. Essentially proclaiming, “Follow me, I’m behind you all the way,” the operational employees keep circling the drain.
What is the solution?
Solution generation for my client company begins with understanding the compelling evidence there is a problem. Right now, the client thinks, “We are big enough to absorb these insignificant issues in the name of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” This is where every business begins its failure; no business can long survive dumpster fires of potential (blue money). People leave, and this has a high replacement cost. People work slowly or below their potential, which is a tremendous cost in green (cash) money and potential (blue money). Operational costs increase, increasing customer costs and the loss of customers is a dynamic cost to the business.
After admitting a problem, the next step is envisioning an end state. Since I began to lead men and women, I have advocated a lesson I learned as a teenager, “Never take your body where your brain has not already traveled.” If you cannot envision the result, do not start trying to make changes until you have envisioned an end state. I sliced my fingers badly with a knife while cutting onions. Why did I slice my fingers and not the onion? I did not understand the end state and assumed I could start cutting and reach an acceptable end state (diced onion). I should never have started cutting; between the loss of the onion and the damage to my fingers, the lesson was not “Never cut onions again,” but “never begin something without a clear end state (goal) in mind.”
The third preparatory step to building a solution is START! The client has this problem of always wanting clear instructions, plans, and supplies on hand before beginning. The speed of business requires action, not plans and instructions. Take the first logical step and begin! Tribus (n.d.) makes this clear with the assurance, “There is a sensible first step,” take that step! I will reiterate a point Tribus (n.d.) makes, employees work IN a system of processes, and the manager should work ON the system of processes, with the employee’s help. A manager should be analogous to a mentor, who, like a leader, after understanding the vision, looks sideways and builds people to meet their level before taking that next logical step into the darkness.
Conclusion
The simple truth is that Juran’s rule has been used as an excuse to dodge responsibility in too many operations, businesses, and organizations. Like my client, the good news is that change is possible with the people you have right now. My client is not a bad company; your company is not inherently bad. People are intrinsically good, and when we better understand the fibers that help tie Juran’s rule to reality, we can employ reframing to shut down the noise and move from much ado about nothing to effective management and leadership. How do we reframe:
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- Establish legitimacy and shift from passive to active.
- Bring outsiders into the discussion, but do not shift responsibility for developing the solution or owning the goals.
- Get the stakeholder’s definitions in writing – Common words, AREN’T. Common understanding; is a goal to strive towards.
- Ask what is missing
- Consider multiple categories, seek out those subject matter experts, and add them to the discussion as equals
- Analyze positive and negative data equally without bias
- Question the objectives, focus on the future and keep moving forward.
As we, the leaders of call centers, strive to change our understanding, realize our roles, and build people, we will build people, not processes, to meet the future. The first step is committing to the decision framed in the question, “Is your company a money tap or a service to the greater good of society?”
References:
The references are included if you want to further research conflict as beneficial.
Amason, A. C. (1996). Distinguishing the effects of functional and dysfunctional conflict on strategic decision making: Resolving a paradox for top management teams. Academy of Management Journal, 39(1), 123-148. doi:http://dx.doi.org.contentproxy.phoenix.edu/10.2307/256633
Baron, R. A. (1991). Positive Effects of Conflict: A Cognitive Perspective. Employee Responsibilities & Rights Journal, 4(1), 25-36.
Brazzel, M. (2003). Chapter XIII: Diversity conflict and diversity conflict management. In D. L. Plummer (Ed.), Handbook of diversity management: Beyond awareness to competency based learning (pp. 363-406). Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc.
Du, F., Erkens, D. H., & Xu, K. (2018). How trust in subordinates affects service quality: Evidence from a large property management firm. Business.Illinois.edu. Retrieved from https://business.illinois.edu/accountancy/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2018/03/Managerial-Symposium-2018-Session-IV-Du-Erkens-and-Xu.pdf
Jehn, K. A. (1995). A multi-method exanimation of the benefits and detriments of intragroup conflict. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40, 256-282.
Lencioni, P. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. Hoboken, NJ. John Wiley & Sons.
Lumineau, F., Eckerd, S., & Handley, S. (2015). Inter-organizational conflicts. Journal of Strategic Contracting and Negotiation, 1(1), 42-64. doi:10.1177/2055563614568493
McShane, S. L., & Von Gilnow, M. A. (2004). Organizational Behavior, Third Edition. Boston: McGraw-Hill Companies.
Moeller, C., & Kwantes, C. T. (2015). Too Much of a Good Thing? Emotional Intelligence and Interpersonal Conflict Behaviors. Journal of Social Psychology, 155(4), 314-324. doi:10.1080/00224545.2015.1007029
Rao, M. (2017). Tools and techniques to resolve organizational conflicts amicably. Industrial and Commercial Training, 49(2), 93-97. doi:10.1108/ict-05-2016-0030
Thomas, K. W. (1992). Conflict and conflict management: Reflections and update. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13(3), 265-274.
Thompson, L. L. (2008). Chapter 8: Conflict in teams – Leveraging differences to create opportunity. In Making the team: A guide for managers (3rd ed., pp. 201-220). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.
While walking through Home Depot, my favorite aisles are those aisles with tools, power tools, hand tools, and so forth. My mind always goes on imaginative wanderings, thinking about what those tools will go out into the world and do. Will an inexperienced hand learn on those tools? Will they build grand buildings? Will they destroy? What will those tools help accomplish? The potential held in a tool is as much a mystery as looking at a babe in arms and thinking, what will that soul go forward and do? I never become bored thinking about the potential held in a tool as part of the ongoing saga of humanity.
But, this article is about people’s potential; why begin discussing tools? To a leader, each person is a tool requiring training, delegation, trust, and motivation to achieve the measure of their creation. Have you ever witnessed an unskilled manager use, or abuse, their people? My first officer in the US Army National Guard was one of these unskilled managers. The stories and experiences from this manager are legion, fraught with examples of what not to do and the hubris of a person placed into a position of power above their competence level. I have long wondered, what did this officer’s boss think about this officer’s performance?
The trainers are pushing back because they are already double and triple tasked to training new hires in two other more “important” departments. Except, because those other departments are considered “more important,” production goals for the entire facility will never be met. A core philosophy is missed; when quality fails, nobody meets production goals. The vicious cycles keep going around; training cannot spare people to train quality, quality fails to meet goals, and production goals are missed due to training.
There are times I have wished this was an isolated example; however, this repeats so often I should have cards made. Breaking the training bottle-neck requires thinking outside the standard paradigm, or in more basic vernacular, get out of the box and start thinking anew! While the following solutions are explicitly geared to fixing the training bottle-neck, the pattern for thinking is helpful as a conversation starter. Start the conversation rolling!
When it comes to bottle-necks and push-back, knowing your customer is the first step in solving the bottle-neck and charting a positive path through push-back. Consider my colleague, his customer are his employees needing training, his vendor is the training department, and the stakeholders are the rest of the business, those setting production goals, those relying upon his team meeting production goals, and ultimately the paying external customer. Yet, my colleague, cannot see who his customer is, does not think of training as a vendor, and the rest of the business as a stakeholder, for this is not how he was trained. Worse, his business unit refuses to accept this method of thinking to improve production goal attainment.
Leaders, it is imperative that you lead first by example personally, then by actions professionally, then only if necessary by words. When you observe new thinking on an old idea, embrace that and see where it goes. Even if the new idea fails, build people! Production goals are about human efforts distilled into statistical symbols. Never forget about the human element. Build people, and you meet production goals. Build quality into every single transaction, and you meet production goals. Fail people, and you will never meet production goals! Fail quality, and you will fail to meet production goals.
Warehouse or call center, manufacturing or non-profit, service industry or product sales, the role of quality continues to be misunderstood. Sometimes, it appears that quality is intentionally misunderstood. Often it seems as if quality and compliance are synonymous, even though quality is a small part of compliance. Some businesses call quality “Quality Assurance,” “Quality Control,” or the “Quality Department.” Regardless of the name, quality is the only path to improving productivity; however, productivity is measured.
Quality is a process of striving to improve. Interestingly, people inherently know when they have received quality or not. Be it a person, a company, a community, a state, a government, etc., how one approaches quality as a process for improvement defines that person, company, community, state, etc. Some companies think, “We have a quality department, we are meeting quality metrics, we are doing just fine in quality.” To which I reply, in my best imitation of Colonel Potter from M*A*S*H 4077, “HORSE HOCKEY!”
Now, someone might think, these are hypotheticals, not real businesses. Those examples are directly from my experience. Yes, these examples are slightly oversimplified for brevity; however, not having a whole company quality culture hinders productivity. This is a truth inescapable.
Productivity, however measured in your company for goods or services, should be a co-equal part of quality. Yet, if equality cannot be achieved, err on the side of increased quality until productivity catches up. The value of productivity is measured in green money, cash. The value of quality is measured in blue money, potential. Bringing up my favorite axiom, “Burn enough blue money, and cash evaporates, and no one can trace where the cash went!”
Want a secret; it does not work in reverse! Erring on the side of increased productivity increases costs elsewhere, burns potential, and ruins company bottom-lines. Quality cannot “catch up” to productivity — an example best witnessed in manufacturing and warehouses. The potential costs between manufacturing or multiple handling of products carry a potential cost, with no means of recovery. Thus, it remains imperative to understand the roles of productivity and quality defined early, and placed in the proper order, to avoid significant cash hits to the bottom line.
A quality culture is an extension of the individual’s professionalism, always striving to be better. Not faster, not slower, but better every day. Training is a dynamic part of quality, and learning something new should be encouraged. Yet, training, especially in call centers, always seems to take a back seat to operations and productivity. All because productivity is not correctly understood and placed in its proper role. Training and quality are potential or blue money expenses where the return on investment will be unknown. Why; because quality and training place tools into the hands of employees, who then go on to build or destroy based upon the examples of leadership.
Quality should be felt in every conversation, in every process, in every program, in every interaction. As the most important customer in a business is other employees, the quality program is the most important activity and process for enhancing the business’s goals, aspirations, and daily production rates. A culture of quality will then have the ground to grow and room to expand. But, a quality culture will not grow overnight, nor will it grow without causing stagnant processes to change.
Dale Dauten authored “The Laughing Warriors: How to Enjoy Killing the Status Quo,” who, alongside Robert Fulghum, author of “Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” have taught me much about the sword and shield of humor. Humor is a tool; it is the best tool in a leader’s toolbox, and “Dad Jokes,” especially those that are “a parent,” work the best. Interestingly, when killing the status quo, one must first become creatively useful.
Dauten (2003, p. 10-11) went further and added that creative usefulness is also ambitious helpfulness; this motivates people. When your employees creatively use their talents, skills, and abilities, they become helpful to the whole brand, the full organization, and guess what, you never have to talk about employee morale or engagement. How many fewer meetings would executives have per day if they were not discussing just these two items; a lot. Meaning they could be on the floor listening, helping, and enjoying what they created: ambitious helpfulness and people’s growth. Just remember, mediocrity is okay!
Mediocrity is acting in a mediocre manner. Mediocre is nothing special; in fact, mediocre happens. Mediocre is indistinguishable, lacking quality, indifferent. In being indifferent, mediocre becomes deadly. Avoiding mediocre attitudes and mediocrity in actions is not a perplexing problem; embrace mediocrity. Sounds absurd, doesn’t it. The whole world wants us to chase quality, nag people into higher performance, and organize differently into success. Guess what; none of those things will bring happiness to ourselves, success to our organizations, and fulfillment to the employees around us. Our brains will go on full alert in embracing mediocrity because we have been taught that mediocrity is dangerous. Guess what; mediocrity IS dangerous. Why embrace mediocrity; because therein, we find the problem with hierarchies, organizational designs, and strategical goals; we forgot the people! Psychologists and geneticists find that the best way to reach people and get the best out of them is to remind them of their weaknesses.
During my MBA, the current buzzword for improving people was “Management by walk-around,” and this philosophy has been incredibly popular while also being fantastically useless! Why; because getting out and taking a walk helps only the manager, not those managed! Worse, management by walk-around brought out the worst egos from their offices, and employees tuned out, turned off, and fell into mediocrity as a shield of protection from “know-it-all” leaders. Want to change that; embrace a “learn-it-all” mentality. When you walk out your door, ask the first person you see to teach you something. Repeat for as many people as you encounter.
Which would be more preferable, employees who ask questions or know answers? How you answer this determines a lot about you and speaks volumes about what a consultant will find in your operations, employees, and customers. As a consultant (since 2004), the number one expression I have heard consistently across the lower 48-states has been “No Way!,” followed closely by “Impossible!,” and “You are out of your mind!” Why; the first excuse, “That is the way we do things here.” Announcing for the world that processes never change, procedures never flex, and customers never change, so why not just keep doing what we have always done, ad nauseam ad infinitum. When reality bit, all of these organizations saw stars, all lost tremendous amounts of capital, shrank operations, and many went bankrupt!
Looking through encouraging eyes is refusing to do the same thing over and over, expecting no changes ever to result; not looking through encouraging eyes is a short bus to insanity! Looking with encouraging eyes is all about asking, “Why Not?” Repeatedly. Consciously. Then looking at the answers and still stepping into the unknown with confidence. Why not; when faced with a problem, ask your employees for solutions, input, and ideas; this leadership style uses “Appreciative Inquiry” to the fullest extent possible. Why not; shake off the status quo, laugh, and enjoy the human element as a tool for creating great people dedicated to your brand. Why not; ask the impossible, explaining the why, and see how the results occur.
I am asking you to choose to become a laughing warrior, slaying the dragons of status quo one idiosyncratic obstacle at a time. Having fun, growing people, improving business, and being adventurous. Never forget, dehydrated water, in a can and pet rocks, sold like wildfire!
© 2021 M. Dave Salisbury
Plasticized words make the most trouble. Unfortunately, public education in America does not appear to care; public educators are some of the worst abusers of words, disconnecting words from meanings to achieve an agenda, which is practicing mental terrorism. Poerksen (1995) discusses this phenomenon in some detail, and the need to be more cognizant of the problem is a small part of the solution. For example, Poerksen (1995) brings up the term ‘strategy’; the context might not be clear. Without specifying the intention and meaning, the audience becomes lost quickly but lost with confidence and lost doing what they understand.
Poerksen (2010) provided sage counsel regarding how language plasticity leads to tyranny. Unfortunately, when discussing criticism, the tyranny of “constructive criticism” is displayed, and it is time for this lie to end, permanently! Let me state, for the record and unequivocally, criticism never constructs positive behaviors! Criticism doesn’t change simply because an adjective attempts to make criticism less harmful.
The remaining definitions in the term criticism expand nicely upon the point that criticism and being critical can never be “constructive.” “The analysis and judgment of the merits and faults of work.” “A person who expresses an unfavorable opinion of something.” The etymology of critic, which is the root of criticism, comes to us from Latin criticus, from Greek Kritikos, from kritēs ‘a judge’, from krinein ‘judge, decide.’ Never forget criticism, or the act of being critical originates from personal perception, a choice to be judgmental and critical. The intent is to pass judgment upon something, someone, or someplace with the intent to cause personal harm or sway the opinions of others.
From the DEI email, we find something very interesting in the Constructive vs. Destructive questions; the lack of the term “criticism” in the constructive criticism questions. Instead, criticism has been subtly changed to “feedback” in every place the term criticism should reside. So, for example, the first item under constructive is stated, “Feedback and advice from others are essential for growth and success. Look at criticism as a learning opportunity.” Better still, the third item in the constructive list states, “Detach yourself from criticism.”
24 May 2021 – 1200-1500 I visited the Las Cruces Community Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC) in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Upon entry, I was asked to wear a mask. I described I could not wear a mask, and the employee said I might be required to wear one but left the decision to those working more closely with me. I waited in line and was called to the Team 2 window, where a gentleman was more than happy to assist me in getting the paperwork started to change VA hospitals after relocating. About 45-minutes into my time in this CBOC, the gentleman asked me to wear a mask. I told him I could not and had brought my VA Doctor’s note as proof. The gentleman read the letter, confirmed I was good to receive care without the mask, and provided exceptional customer support.
By tracing behaviors, attitudes, and influence to their source, the police chief acts as he considers appropriate, but the underofficers generationally multiply and mirror his behaviors. The same is true for the chief who takes his example from the assistant director, director, and hospital leadership. Chains of command always have this consequence; the example of those above are mirrored, replicated, and multiplied to impress the higher officers to gain attention and promotion opportunities. Want to take a measure of a leader; look to the most junior person in the chain of command and watch them for behaviors, attitudes, and actions that originate in the leadership.
Case in point, long have I detailed and described the failures of leadership at the VA. The latest is a wire fraud scheme in 
Let the US Attorney and VA-OIG special investigators crow about catching the person perpetrating fraud. Before they break open the champagne, they need to be looking into the leadership that either overtly or covertly allowed this fraud to occur. The elected officials need to be demanding why fraud opportunities are so rampant at the Department of Veterans Affairs that criminal proceedings are being reported almost every week and asking about the culture of corruption and leadership failures allowing these behaviors to thrive.
Did you catch that; the office specifically tasked with handling estimates intentionally low-balled estimates, did not include all necessary contractual requirements, and then lied to Congress to cover their hides, and fell back upon designed incompetence to skirt blame, responsibility, and accountability when the VA-OIG came investigating. 
I am not asking these questions and not expecting an answer! I am asking these questions looking for and expecting real results to begin immediately, if not sooner! This is a national embarrassment with a global impact, and it is time for the United States to lead in correcting their detestable government workforce!
In making observations, the consultant team tested the “open-door” policy and found that those sought were never in their offices even though the doors were open. The training was occurring, but the training offered had little to no value for the front-line customer-facing staff. It was generally considered a zero-sum game, providing time off the phones and causing stress and overtime costs. Worse, the front-line supervisors and employees’ perception was the existence of a chasm, separating them from higher organizational leaders.
Communication as a tool in expressing confidence in the follower/leader relationship gains strength to clear misunderstandings and reach the desired consensus to meet organizational goals and operational objectives. The operational concept of trust and communication requires the third leg of the trust relationship agency. The follower needs to possess agency to act, informed agency requires training to employ, and the power and support of leadership to feel confident in action as detailed by Boler (1968), Avolio and Yammarino (2002). Which is where concepts meet reality, where theory is tested, and the leader is needed.
COVID has provided many opportunities, and only through collaboration, communication, trust, and empowered agency, can help call centers to survive this difficult period. Regardless of how long the government shutdowns occur, your call center can survive, and call center leaders can prosper, provided they are willing to be leaders indeed, not managers in disguise.
DNC-Consulting 