Conquering Corporate Fear: A Marxist Approach

By Howie Jacobson

Director of Voice, Bregman Partners

The biggest enemy of change and growth is fear. Groucho Marx exemplifies a life lived without fear, embracing risk and newness, improvising constantly, and often acting gloriously foolish in the process. It is fitting that he be our guide on this journey.

When I'm afraid, I don't take risks. I become defensive and reactive, and I fail to see opportunities. Fear causes stress, which call forth a fight or flight response to every new situation, actual or anticipated.

But what am I afraid of? Of a new corporate structure? Of a different job title or office? Of a new software package? Of the unknown in general?

No. Each of those can elicit fear, but none is its source. Underlying each of those situations is the real fear: fear of looking stupid. All novelty puts new demands on me. What if I can't meet those demands? What if I can't figure out how to do my job in the new structure? What if my new job title advertises competencies I lack? What if I can't handle the new database, and some high school freshman gets my job? What if they find out that I cheated on the trigonometry midterm my junior year in high school? What if?

Let's be fair: organizations don't create that fear in us. In our culture, at least, it's part of the human condition. Its root is what Peggy McIntosh (1984) called "Feeling Like a Fraud." She defines it this way: "·the feeling that · one has pulled the wool over others' eyes; that one is in the wrong place, and about to be found out; that there has been a colossal mistake in the selection and accreditation process which the rest of the world is about to discover." The feeling was in no way limited to the average or below-average achievers of society; more than half the freshman admitted to Harvard/Radcliffe (of all places) in the early 1980s felt they were admitted by mistake. When we feel like frauds, we despise not only ourselves, but also the dumb suckers we manage to fool. As Groucho put it, "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members."

Three things about corporations in particular can heighten the feeling of fraudulence to the point where it interferes with success.

1. Pyramidal Hierarchy

Despite living in a land where anyone can become president, most people don't see themselves as deserving the top spot anywhere. I am socialized to accept my averageness: I'm a B student (in the comfortable majority), I'm "Bystander with Hat" in the school play, I achieve the 64th best time in the 400 meters at States. Corporations have lots of employees at low-status positions, and fewer employees at high-status positions. This differs from our childhood experiences (our "evolutionary environment") in two fundamental ways. First, it isn't a normal Bell curve. When teachers grade "on a curve," the majority of students end up with average grades. The middle is the safest place to be for my herd instincts. In corporations, on the other hand, the majority are near the bottom. Each rung I climb places me at a level of fewer and fewer peers.

So the higher I climb, the more my status is likely to be at odds with my self-perception. I may do things, consciously or not, to sabotage my success. As Groucho put it, "I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty."

The other difference is that in school, I can remain at the same place in the curve my entire career. The smart kids aren't going anywhere, and neither am I. The teacher doesn't call me up to her desk one morning and say, "Look, Rothberg and Coleman just transferred to Central High. I'm counting on you to pull in a hundred on the calculus test tomorrow." In many corporations, it's up or out. And in others, it's up or keep doing the same boring shit for 25 years while your daughter's little league teammate becomes your supervisor. The corporate environment is much more competitive than others we're likely to encounter. Even the JV football team was competitive only with other teams. Within the team, you were more likely to be kicked off for your behavior on the bus than your performance on the field.

So promotion within the corporation is a fierce battle for survival. Coworkers who are exhorted to think of themselves as "teammates" know that they risk their own career advancement if they make the wrong people look good. Individual success can come at the expense of organizational success. When people fail, we're as likely to think "thank God it wasn't me" as help them up. As Groucho put it, "No one is completely unhappy at the failure of his best friend."

2. Fuzzy relationship between ability and success

In childhood, we construct a clear connection between our abilities and our results. We justify our grades ("I suck at science· I blew off that course"), our athletic outcomes ("63 people ran faster than me today"), even our popularity ("I have a giant zit on my chin"). We grow up believing in a meritocracy. While events take potshots at that belief ("Mr. Pantazes is sooo unfair!"), we basically accept that our own ability and hard work determine our success.

Corporations are much more complex than individuals. Corporate success cannot be traced to the efforts of one person. Multiple interactions both within and outside the organization lead to particular results, which may or may not spell success, depending on the weather in Taipei or the voting machines in Broward County. My career advancement is determined much more by perception than by objective data. The result: the higher I get, the less sure I am that I deserve my position. This insecurity can be unbearable. To assuage it, I may unconsciously choose to ignore all data that suggests I am not perfect. And the more I hide from this data, the less it teaches me, and the more my flaws become apparent to all around me. As Groucho put it, "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"

3. Constant churn and change.

As if a steep climb to a narrow summit and fuzzy measurements of success weren't enough, most corporations are now going through periods of tectonic change. Whatever expertise or skill got me my position of authority and responsibility isn't enough to sustain me there. My tasks and roles are likely to change. The knowledge I need to make decisions is infinite in scope and constantly in flux. I feel like I've spent my life learning how to climb the mountain, and I'm not at the top for two seconds before I have to strap on a pair of skis and push off down the other side. Of course I'm going to feel like a fraud: nothing in my skill set is relevant, and nothing in my expertise is transferable. The only way I'm going to acquire the new skills and knowledge is by loosening up, paying attention to feedback (like my face hitting the snow), and asking for as much help as people are willing to give me.

There is a fourth element of many, if not all, corporate cultures that can exacerbate the need to pretend, and therefore the fear of looking like a fraud.

4. Bonus: Culture of Spin

If you read the press releases and annual reports, companies never do terrible things. Disasters never happen. There's never any bad news. Incredible, but true? Or are these companies terrified of what would happen if the reality were known? Recently, an online retailer with whom I had been doing steady business for over a year sent me an email that began, "Exciting News!" The exciting news turned out to be that they had gone bankrupt, were going out of business, and were selling their few remaining assets (my email address among them) to some other online retailer whose site was an unusable mess. If a company can't admit a problem under those circumstances, when can it?

The culture of spin is pervasive. I write press releases obfuscating our third quarter earnings. I assure clients that the work will be done by a fantasy date to keep their business. I read on the intranet that everyone is eagerly awaiting the new org chart, which will incorporate all our suggestions. I begin to get the picture that honesty is not the best policy around here. I will succeed in this environment, not by facing up to my shortcomings, but by hiding them. As Groucho put it, "The secret of life is honest and fair dealing; if you can fake that, you've got it made."

How to Drive Out Fear

Given these three or four elements of corporate life that exacerbate the fear of looking stupid and being uncovered as a fraud, what's a company to do? How can senior leaders encourage the risk taking, flexibility, teamwork, and innovation that are needed for successful change? If fear is the enemy of change, then how do you change a fearful environment?

Surprise: it's not that hard. Think of the incredible amounts of energy and focus that people pour into pretense, into self-delusion, into unproductive backbiting, into worship of the status quo. Now give them permission to stop. It's amazingly freeing and healing. People find that openness is just more pleasant than bullshit.

Senior leaders have to start with themselves. They possess tremendous power and unbelievable leverage within their companies. They may not believe it, based on their previous efforts to impose change by fiat. But fiat is not the source of their power. Paradoxically, their ability to lead a culture shift is based on their vulnerability and humility.

Senior leaders have to model the behaviors they want within their companies. Imagine the CEO leading a meeting of 250 managers, in which she outlines all the mistakes she made during the previous 12 months. She explains why she made the mistakes, their consequences, and what she's learned. Could this happen in your company? What would happen if it did?

No amount of training or exhortation on honest self-assessment would have the same effect. Leading by example is the only way to neutralize the cynicism and defensiveness that people display when other people tell them what to do. This CEO has made mistakes, like everybody else. But instead of covering them up, she acknowledges them and makes them public. By acknowledging her mistakes, she learns from them. By making them public, she encourages everyone in her company to do the same. Her very vulnerability has become her greatest strength.

It's easier for me to be vulnerable when I'm doing the stabbing. At least the blows are expected and controlled. Thus, broadcasting my own mistakes is a safe place to start exploring vulnerability. But I can't stop there if I want to break the chains of fear that keep me from growing in response to change. I have to make myself vulnerable to the feedback of others. I have to be willing to listen to what other people say about me.

After the CEO admits her mistakes, the next step is to enlist the help of the people in the company for her own growth. First, she requests anonymous feedback about her own strengths and weaknesses. With a coach, she analyzes the information, creating a development plan that will incorporate more anonymous feedback over the course of weeks and months.

Her own example will open up the company for organization-wide shifts that will promote honesty, risk taking, and confidence in the face of change. When we consult with an organization, we make sure the leadership is constitutionally able to undergo the same process they want foisted on everyone else. Otherwise, all our tools and tricks will fail. If the CEO can't handle the truth, it's a big mistake to ask for the truth. 360¡ reviews are going out of favor, partly because they're bulky and expensive and time-consuming, but mostly because people use them as anonymous weapons against coworkers. Without a spirit of respect and honesty that comes from the very top of the organization, no change tool will be used respectfully or honestly.

With that caveat, and the additional caveat that we don't know your company, here are some general suggestions for moving toward a change-friendly culture.

1. Expand the top of the pyramid.

If competitive pressure is keeping people from doing their best, reduce that pressure by increasing the number and nature of opportunities for advancement within your company. There are many ways to do this. In a professional services firm, create a non-partner track responsible for client satisfaction, marketing and all the other things partners tend to overlook. Create non-managerial tracks for technologists and other experts who lack managerial skills and don't want to develop them. In addition to reducing some of the cutthroat pressure, you'll be inventing ways to retain great people in whom you've invested.

2. Unfuzzify the yardstick.

The main complaint at one of our clients was, "It's easier to talk to a headhunter about my career than to talk to my manager." The performance review system was so bulky and formal that it got in the way of productive conversations between employees and their managers. Managers worried that they lacked the skills to have conversations with less-than-perfect employees, so the conversations never happened. As a result, promotions were seen as mysterious and capricious. We streamlined and simplified the review system and coached managers and employees on how to give and receive feedback. Employees became clear on where they were, and what they needed to do to move to a higher level of responsibility. Managers learned how to say the things that would help their employees be more effective. The company's culture of secrecy no longer seemed useful, and began to melt away. People started feeling more secure that they had earned their positions, and needed to justify themselves less.

3. Put people in control of change.

During times of tectonic change, people fear losing control. The last thing they want is an autocratic change process foisted upon them by top leaders or (worse) outside consultants. That's a recipe for resistance. Through meetings, offsites, working groups, and whatever else, engage the people in your company to make decisions and plans about their own jobs. Give them the information they need. Give them support: the resources and tools they need to do what they've said they're going to do. But find out what needs changing from the real experts in your industry: your own people on the front lines.

We're not saying that top leaders have to give up making executive decisions and holding subordinates accountable. To the contrary: the executive decisions will be based on the input of the whole organization, rather than an elite and probably out-of-touch group. And the whole shift is about accountability. The difference is, people will be held accountable to what they have collected created and agreed to, rather than a mandate from above.

4. Tell the truth

If you need to lay off 20% of your workforce, tell people. Don't pretend to consider all options and then drop the bomb that you were going to drop anyway. If you're going through a merger or acquisition, tell people as much as you can as soon as you can. The rumor mill is not only destructive for the misinformation it provides, but for the energy that goes into its operation. And if people don't trust the company to tell them the truth, they will make up stuff far worse than the truth could ever be.

Moment of Vulnerability

Nothing here is earthshattering, or even vaguely original. Like most sensible management advice, our suggestions are challenging not because they're confusing or intellectually taxing. As Groucho put it: "A child of five could understand this. Fetch me a child of five." They're challenging because they're scary. They challenge people to break out of rigid habits: to embrace change, acknowledge hard facts about themselves, and release the feelings of fraudulence that most of us carry around like guilty secrets. The payoff is the incredible power borne of vulnerability that enables us to lead others, and the incredible energy set free when we drop the burden of inadequacy and seek growth and success together.

It's a delicious paradox: I am strongest when I make myself most vulnerable. When I assume this posture, it doesn't cross other people's minds that I am inadequate. They assume that I have achieved my position on my merits, even in spite of the inadequacies I choose not to hide. As Groucho put it, "He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot."

I wish you well on the road to change. I hope that road becomes its own reward, helping you create a vibrant company that engages its people through trust, openness, respect, and a commitment to shared values. A company where people act without fear, innovating and taking risks and flowing with a changing world. A company where people are good enough not to need to pretend.

I'd love to hear what you think. I welcome your input, comments, and corrections. I, too, work on hearing criticism without becoming defensive. As Groucho put it, "These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others."