A good friend of mine copied me in today on an email he had
received that filled him with disgust. It was from a senior manager in the
institution in which he worked – basically, informing them all that his work
was done, time for new hands to steer the tiller, and he’d be off to a
glittering new opportunity in Australia … how wonderful to have made so many
friends and he’d be keeping a friendly eye on his old employer/colleagues …
yawn, yawn, yawn. The fact that he’d
been in post less than two years, that his sector was experiencing huge trauma
and upheaval, and that far from the work having been done, rather it had yet to
be attempted, did not seem apparent to him.
My friend had every reason for a silent curse, and I
reflected on it that there were two very distinct kinds of nauseous and
de-motivating managers: the first, the lotus eaters, which characterised the
above. These are the type of manager who seem to have ingested a drug – the
lotus plant – that fills them with management jargon, and
hail-fellow-well-met-and-where’s the pension, and the sharpest of resumes
combined with the dullest of performances. In short, they never seem to get
what performing or performance means.
They float from organisation to organisation, often ending
up in the public sector, never having achieved a damn thing, but stuffed with
the offices, the salaries, the perks, the titles, that persuade the unwary and
the uninitiated that they are dealing with a VIP and somebody who at the very
least is making a difference. Alas, no such difference is ever made, much less
attempted – the eye is on the clock, and the only real concern – often not even
consciously apparent to them – is escaping to retirement unexposed.
Increasingly, as their career progresses, these lotus
eaters live on islands with like minded people – all ingesting the drug – they
recruit people like themselves, and the whole organisation nose-dives into
absolute mediocrity. In the case of businesses they then go out of business; in
the case of the public sector – take quangos – it takes a change of government
to cull them.
The opposite of the Lotus eaters are the Myrmidons. These
can be equally aggravating. The Myrmidons were the crack fighting soldiers of
the great Greek hero, Achilles. They were originally ants which the god Zeus
upgraded into a human fighting machine: in their black armour, they swarmed
invincible and pitiless to do Achilles’ bidding and fight his wars. The thing
is, they are achievers, but of a very irritating variety. They too seem on a
drug – the drug of endless success and achievement.
Apart from their leader – Achilles – they are all nameless
non-entities to whom, frankly, a psychiatrist might say: get a life! We read
about these Achilles all the time in the superior dailies and in the glossy
management monthlies: they are the mega-successful captains of industry who do
have a ‘bit’ of personality (like Achilles, who had a marvellous sulk) – they
sold ice cream once, or they like hot air balloons. And they are worshipped:
books are written about them, books are written about how to be like them, and
most importantly there is a constant publication of tips to give you just that
edge – i.e. how to make sure your sword cuts – like they have in business.
This dull imitation translates into a soulless focus on
achievement, often diluted to simply making money, which drains the colour out
of work: the ants are all the same.
And this is the problem with both the lotus eaters and the
myrmidons: you may think being paid to underachieve for thirty years means you
have arrived, but you can’t cheat your own self-esteem. You have self-developed
into an inferior person and that never leaves you. And at the other end, the
Myrmidons, you have been so busy achieving that you have all but forgotten that
you are a person. Typically, we find them with a loveless end and a raft of
health problems to boot.
So it is with managers in this new age – we need new models
if we are to avoid the self destruction of both lotus eaters and myrmidons.
Where shall we turn? Perhaps it is to the wily Odysseus himself – the
strategist, the hero, and the one who clearly identified his own emotional
needs whilst fully experiencing their intensity.
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