Bill Buxton wrote a great reply to the question of what is wrong with
touchy-feely. He said,
"Personally, I don't for one second doubt the significance of the
emotional, non-rational, frequently unconscious, i.e., human side of every
equation. And I do my damnedest to deal adequately with that side of the
equation."
I have come to believe that thought, values, and emotions play off each
other. I can make myself angry or happy by the things I chose to think
about. And I find that my thoughts can be dicated by emotions that emerge
from an event that violates one of my values. To focus exclusively on the
"mind" or the "heart" is a mistake.
One of the problems I have with touchy-feely is that people's feelings are
often given precedence over reason. For example, at Novell our department
decided that we should require every engineer to pass Novell's
certification tests (that seems like an obvious decision sense our
engineers were supporting Novell's products). We gave everyone in the
department four months to obtain certifciation; we paid for each
certification test; and we provided class instructed training; we gave
each engineer time off their telephone support schedule to study and take
tests. In other words, we gave each employee every possible opportunity to
obtain their certification.
We made clear, at the beginning, that if you didn't have your
certification at the end of four months you would be invited to work
somewhere else. As usual, the bell curve asserted itself, and there were
those people who took every opportunity to learn, and reached their goal.
There were those who didn't. Those who didn't made a big huge stink. They
went crying to the VP, saying they had been dealt with unfairly. So the VP
fired our director who set the goal, and kept all those lazy, mediocre
people who didn't want to earn the job they had.
I met privately with the VP, and he told me that the goal was too
difficult. Yeah right! He also said it was demoralizing the troops. Yeah.
It was. The troops who didn't deserve the job they had.
"1. Losing sight of what work is all about. The reasons I work and ways
I work have lots to do with touchy-feely issues. But useful work itself
is about real things for real people in the real world, meaning ultimately
things that people are willing to shell out their own money for. (Among
many other things, profit and wealth are not dirty words.) "
The reason we set the goal we did was because we needed to be sure our
engineers were able to provide the service our customers were paying for.
The goal was motivated by our desire to make money and to grow our share
of the market.
"2. Inappropriate interventions. It took me my whole life to build who I
am, flaws and all. Is that any of an employer's business? Even if it
were, is it likely to change significantly through an employer's
interventions? I don't think so."
I think, Bill, you could say we grow through our work, but our work must
not expect to tell us how to grow. If we fail to grow in ways that are
valuable to the employer we can expect to find another job.
"3. Power trips. "Touchy feely" is way too often a control move in
disguise and in general an imposition of one set of values on others.
Generations ago, we had holier than thou. Modern one-upsmanship looks
more like opener than thou."
Touchy-feely, it seems to me, is a way of appeasing the masses at the
expense of the few who bring legitimate value to the organization. That is
why I think it is inherently immoral to use a touchy-feely management
style.
By the same token, however, I find Carl Rogers three prerequisites of a
therapuetical relationship to be a great management philosophy. I don't
think that Rogers was touchy-feely; he was simply allowing people to be
themselves, and explore themselves in a safe envrionment. A touchy-feely
environment doesn't make it safe for me, only those who don't perform at
my level! (Assuming, of course, I'm performing above the average!)
-- Benjamin Compton DWS -- "The GroupWise Integration Experts" (617) 267-0044 ext. 16 E-Mail: bcompton@emailsolutions.com http://www.emailsolutions.comLearning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>