A Praise and Criticism Case Study

Ted Shelby opened up the morning session of participants in the Phase Three, Section II, Group I of the “Subordinate Readiness Program: Production Workers.” “Gentlemen and ladies,” he said, “Stanley has come in this morning to take over this session. He is our expert on employee relations on the assembly line, and that is the topic today. Stanley, the session is all yours.”

Stanley, having finally broken from the embrace of his personal iron maiden, Ben Franklyn’s social media Marketing campaign, has been working with Ted for almost a year now. But he still bears the imprint of his technical background.

To put it bluntly, he isn’t the world’s greatest showman. He knows his stuff, but he has trouble putting it over. At every opportunity he seeks security in charts and numbers, and had tended, as he evolved this session over the months, to build more and more charts and numbers into his presentation.

He doesn’t have to engage his audience if he just talks facts, so he reads the numbers from the charts, pokes at them with a pointer, and generally gives little more than a literal rendition of what his listeners can see for themselves.

” … and so, we see here that Class A assemblers who-and I quote: ‘accept instructions eagerly and intelligently’- have a tendency to move up faster in pay grade than those who do not. Eighty-seven percent of assemblers who scored lower than 25 percent went up a grade in less than 6 months, compared to only 43 percent of assemblers with scores higher than 50 percent.

Remember that low scores indicate high instruction-acceptance, and that high scores indicate low instruction-acceptance. That is, where the chart is going up, it is actually going down …. ”

Stanley really worked very hard at his sessions, but sometimes it was painful to watch.

Stanley’s troubles were not lost on Ted Shelby. Given the situation and his responsibility for it, you might have thought that Ted would have tried to straighten Stanley out early in the program. But Ted didn’t like interpersonal strife, and Stanley was pretty defensive about his sessions, not being sure that he wanted to do that kind of thing anyway.

Criticism from Ted would be certain to precipitate a confrontation; he knew that Stanley’s reaction would be something like: “What do you mean, ‘go easy on the numbers’? Look, I’m the expert on this topic, and what do you know about it?

What makes you think your way is better anyhow? If that’s how you feel, you can take your Subordinate Readiness Program and shove it, for all I care. I’m going back to production where we talk facts, not B.S.”

Ted simply had no stomach for that sort of thing. People like praise. Accentuate the positive. Catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, etc. So, from the very beginning, it was “Good show, Stanley. The way you handled that question about Subordinate Responsiveness was terrific. It was your best talk yet.”

This went on for almost a year when Stanley finally burst into Ted’s office and said, “I quit! You must really think I’m some kind of idiot!” Stanley hadn’t been drinking, but he had been indulging in a bit of pessimistic reverie. He was really fun. “The very first time I did that session you said, “Good show, Stan.”

Okay. I knew it wasn’t that great, but I appreciated your wanting me to feel good. The next time you told me it was better than my first one, and I think it was. But it’s been how many times now?

And each time,” Stanley mimicked Ted’s super-sincere delivery,'” … your best talk yet, Stan.’ Well, if the last was my best then the first one was really lousy, and you’ve been lying like hell to one right from the beginning!”

What Ted had in fact communicated to Stanley was not that Stanley was doing a good job. No, it was that Ted was unwilling to put in the effort to help Stanley do the job better. Ted’s words said one thing, but they were counterfeit. His behaviour sent the real message.

A few months later when Stanley returned to Pawtucket, he invariably stopped up to see his old buddies on the fifth floor. Today, as he entered the big drafting room, Claude Gilliam and Lesley were having a heated discussion. Stanley approached the pair with some circumspection, not knowing what he might be getting into.

“I don’t get it; I don’t get it. You’d think Claude would get a kick out of this. Why is he getting so excited?” Lesley was talking half to Claude and half to Stanley. It turned out that Lesley had just been chewed out by Kerry Drake, who is an expert at that.

Lesley was willing to admit that she was wrong, that Kerry had a good point, but Lesley didn’t see the necessity of Kerry’s doing it the way he did. Stanley, of course, knew that Kerry had only one way, and that was it.

The spat developed when Claude commented that Lesley shouldn’t complain, that actually she was very lucky. That sort of thing never happened to Claude. Lesley was in no mood to take any needling, especially when it didn’t make any sense to her.

Hearing all this, Stanley made an attempt at reconciliation. With as much good humour as possible, he recounted the time that Kerry really skinned him on that construction job. Lesley and Stanley laughed it off, but Claude became even more insistent.

“Sure, you think it’s funny. But then, how could you understand?” “Uh oh,” thought Stanley. “Here we go again.” Stanley had gotten to know Claude well enough in the past to have a couple of friendly arguments about obstacles African American employees still face in the 21 st century and while Stan sympathised with Claud to a point, he also felt Claude was a bit too sensitive to the issue.

Notably, Claude was one of The Company’s first African American professional employees hired after the company had introduced its multi-faceted “diversity initiative” a few years ago.

Prior to the Diversity initiative, the company had some African American professional employees. However, the few black professional employees on the job prior to the diversity initiative were, except for the difference of skin color, essentially exactly the same as the rest of the people in The Company. But Claude was different; in speech, dress, appearance, and in a thousand and one 1ninor ways that told you that Claude had followed a very different path to the Polytechnic Institute than every other student. But back to Stanley, Lesley, and Claude.”

No, you don’t understand. You don’t understand because nobody’s ever treated you the way they treat me. Look at Ted. Know what I am to Ted? I’m an ‘X’ on the diversity initiative scorecard To Ted and that’s likely all I will ever be.” Stanley and Lesley both started to protest, but Claude cut the1n off.

“That’s the way he thinks about me, I mean.” Pointing to Stan, “He thinks about you as the HR Specialist,” and pointing to Lesley, “he thinks of you as the communication specialist.

But me, he sees me as a black man first and an engineer second. No, I don’t think he is a racist and he would be horrified if anyone called him one, but when he interacts with me, particularly during my goal setting sessions with him, there usually seems to be this awkward atmosphere in the room.

“And you know what? He’s scared to death of me. What if I fail? How will it look? They’ll think he can’t get along with a diverse workforce and isn’t suited to manage in the 21” century. (Claude added an ironic emphasis). Why the hell is he so afraid I’m going to fail? I got through Tech okay and everything I got; I got the hard way- working my ass off to learn what you two knew in high school. So, what’s he so worried about?

“I’ll tell you. He’s worried cause I don’t talk right, I don’t sound right, and I don’t act right, and in the back of his head I might not look too good to him either. That’s what I mean when I say, how could you understand? How could you?

“Ted just knows there are things I can’t do, so he’s not going to give me the chance to fail. He does what he thinks is helping me out. They all do, more or less. Don’t give me anything too tough to do. Make excuses for rue. No criticism. Never, never give me an as chewing when I deserve it.

See, I’m just not going to get the chance that you all get, so how do I learn? Everything I do is always fine. And then, finally, the time comes when I’ve been here a while and it’s time for my second or third promotion and that promotion, well, it just won’t ever come along.

I can’t get that promotion because I don’t have certain abilities. And, why don’t I have these certain abilities? Well, it’s because I never got the chance to develop them in my previous experience. No one’s ever let rue fail now and then and no one’s ever given me an honest chewing out when I’ve screwed up.

Then they say, ‘See, just like we thought. He’s a good employee, but he just doesn’t have what it takes for the manager position. Look at his record, its good, but when has he ever really been involved in the hard decisions or had really difficult work. He’s been here 5 years now; I just think his intelligence and motivation are fairly average.”‘

And there you have it. Unfortunately, Claude is right on target. Ted is slightly prejudiced. Not in a conscious, nasty, malevolent way; no, it’s unconscious, well – meaning, and idiotic. The crazy thing is that Ted, as in all Company matters, wants a diverse workforce, just like The Company wants.

After all, Ted was on the committee that developed the diversity initiative and counts it as one of his key achievements. Thus, Ted wants black professionals, Hispanic managers, blind professors, female CEOs, and sees no legitimate reason that the gentlemen in the wheelchair who was just hired won’t advance within the company as expected. And, most certainly, Ted wants Claude to succeed.

The irony is that Ted is trying to help Claude by limiting Claude’s opportunity to make mistakes. However, Ted’s efforts to protect Claude are hurting both the diversity initiative and Claude’s chances to succeed. Unconsciously, Ted is afraid that Claude will fail and Ted doesn’t want that to happen.

Given this fear, Ted is “helping” Claude in Ted’s view. However, the way Ted is “helping” Claud only increases the chance that, sooner or later, Claude will fail. Claude won’t fail to perform his current job and he likely won’t fail at the next level, but if Claude is protected by Ted too long, Claude will fail because he will hit a promotion plateau.

No, The Company isn’t going to fire Claude, but The Company likely is only going to let Claude get so far up the line and the reason is that the Ted’s of The Company likely won’t let Claude get the experience he needs in the lower ranks to justify promoting him to the higher ranks a few years from now.

This plateau has been described as the “glass ceiling” when discussing the hierarchical progression of women. although it is starting to crack with developments such as Marry Barra being promoted to CEO of General Motors. However, it must be acknowledged that “diverse” employees be they women, black, Hispanic, physically disabled, etc., still face a barrier in the professional workforce. It’s not the ignorant, closed minded, and hateful barrier of times past.

No, it’s actually a much more difficult barrier to overcome. The barrier I am discussing is perhaps best termed the “expectations roadblock.” I call it the “expectations roadblock” because expectations that diverse employees can’t handle certain responsibilities in their early years at the company

frequently lead to the fact that they are not suitable for promotion beyond a particular point at a later date. You might say it’s a modem day professional version of the self-fulfilling prophecy in action.

Discussion Questions:

1. In the situation in the first part of this chapter, what is wrong with Ted’s feedback/evaluation and how could it be improved?
2. In the second part, why does Claude actually want critical feedback from his supervisors?
3. Have you seen the “expectations roadblock” in action? What happened and why?
4. How might Claude be a victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy?
5. Are you aware of “diversity initiatives” where you work or where you attend school? What is the view of such efforts by rnost organisation members?
6. Besides “diversity initiatives” (which are often viewed by employees as politically motivated), what efforts can organisations take to help both develop a diverse workforce and make sure diverse employees have a fair chance to move up the ladder?

PLACE THE ORDER WITH US TODAY AND GET A PERFECT SCORE!!!