Set-up-to-Fail Syndrome: Overcoming the Undertow of Expectations - Softcover

Manzoni, Jean-Francois; Barsoux, Jean-Louis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 142210284X ISBN 13: 9781422102848

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press, 2007

Synopsis

Do you have an employee whose performance keeps deteriorating—despite your close monitoring? Brace yourself: You may be at fault—by unknowingly triggering the set-up-to-fail syndrome. Perhaps things started off swimmingly. But then something--a missed deadline, a lost client—made you question the person's performance. You began micromanaging him. Suspecting your reduced confidence, he started doubting himself—and stopped giving his best. You viewed his new behavior as additional proof of mediocrity, and tightened the screws further. In The Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome, Jean-Francois Manzoni and Jean-Louis Barsoux show how this insidious cycle hurts everyone: employees stop volunteering ideas, preventing your organization from getting the most from them; you lose energy to attend to other activities; and your reputation suffers as other employees deem you unfair. Team spirit wilts as targeted performers are alienated. But the set-up-to-fail syndrome doesn't have to happen. The authors provide preventive measures, such as loosening the reins as new employees master their jobs. If the syndrome has already erupted, Manzoni and Barsoux explain how to discuss the dynamic with your employee and reverse the cycle.

About this title

Review:

Will open the eyes of anyone who manages people and enable them to refresh their approach for the better
-- Edge Magazine, September 2007

Synopsis:

Just as kids are evaluated and put on a certain academic track from a very early age, so, too, are employees assessed and evaluated from week one on the job. Employees, like kids, often wind up "living into" the expectations set for them by those in authority, despite their true capacities. In the ever-present challenge of walking the tightrope between wanting to give employees freedom and needing to stay informed, supervisors go down one of two paths with each employee: controlling or empowering. If managers successfully negotiate this balance, the relationship and the employee typically thrive. However, as is often the case, managers can lose their balance. The set-up-to-fail syndrome (SUTFS) occurs with the balance tips toward control rather than empowerment. Whether they're aware of it or not, managers do not treat all employees the same.Their behaviour toward employees depends on the earliest perceptions of each person's performance. In particular, managers tend to behave in far more controlling ways toward their perceived weaker performers.

This behaviour often results in a vicious cycle whereby an employee gets discouraged by his manager's behaviour toward him and increasingly under-performs. Not only does the employee stop trying, but the manager loses an opportunity to fully utilise the employee's strengths. Once in this cycle, managers become unable to see the employee's behaviour through any other lens, which is a recipe for disaster. Building on The Set-Up-to-Fail-Syndrome article in "Harvard Business Review" (March-April 1998), Manzoni and Barsoux offer this powerful insight into a dynamic all-too-familiar to any manager: we set the expectations for those around us. When someone seems "on" we manage him or her with enthusiasm.However, in some cases, we find ourselves avoiding contact with an employee, micro-managing, and ultimately sabotaging an employee because the relationship has clearly gone south. The authors show managers how to recognise SUTF relationships, and most importantly, how to reverse them before it's too late.

The authors also show how managers can stay balanced and prevent this dysfunctional set-up-to-fail dynamic from the start, triggering positive performance spirals with all of their employees.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 142210284X
• ISBN 13: 9781422102848
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304