Presentations text content in The High Cost of
Slide1
The High Cost of Supervisory Inaction
C. W. Von Bergen
Southeastern Oklahoma State University
Durant, OK
Slide2A Common Assumption …
“doing
nothing will have no effect on performance”
—
Hellriegel
&
Slocum (2007
, p.
103)
Slide3What Do These Individuals Have In Common?
Pope John Paul IICoach Joe PaternoMajor Nidal Hassan
Slide4Doing Nothing Does Something
Demotivates good performers
Decreases
the probability of future
desired
behavior
Encourages poor workers
Opens
the door for
increased
levels of
undesired
performance
Slide5Management Nonresponse to Desirable Employee Performance
Nonreinforced
subordinate good performance leads to negative subordinate affective and behavioral responses
Dissatisfaction
Performance decrement
Extinction may unintentionally occur
“Just
ignore it, and it’ll go
away”
Analogy: houseplants that do not get watered wither away
Slide6Supervisory Inaction to Desirable Employee Performance: Why???
Subordinates will see them as weak if they use too much R+
Complimenting someone who may have to be fired or demoted in the future could backfire
People don’t need R+ for “doing the job they are paid to do”
T
he supervisor does not read people well enough to understand what is reinforcing to each specific individual
Slide7Great Leaders and Organizations
Provide
occasions to acknowledge, recognize, and reward meaningful accomplishments,
thus creating
a culture where progress and appreciation prevail
.
Great organizations create greater success by praising and celebrating good performance, that is, by positive reinforcement.
Slide8Management Nonresponse to Undesirable Employee Performance
Qui
tacet
consentire
videtur
.
Wrongdoing
is often self-rewarding to a worker and involves an activity the person already finds
satisfying so the behavior often continues
Creates disillusionment
from the very people the business relies most upon—those who consistently produce good results.
I
gnoring undesirable behavior generally tends to maintain or increase ineffective and inefficient actions; leads to more serious actions
Slide9Supervisory Inaction to Undesirable Employee Performance: Why???
d
on’t
want to rock the boat, fearing that poor performers will retaliate with even worse
performance
they dislike confrontation and possibly they are
unassertive
fear hurting employee feelings or potential workplace
violence
have internalized the dictums of “don’t be judgmental” and “don’t say anything at all if you can’t say something nice”
Slide10Functional Effects of Negative Feedback
Employees
generally feel better about their supervisor, coworkers, and opportunities for advancement when their leaders hold employees accountable for poor performance.
Bad apples spoil the barrel (
Felps
, Mitchell, &
Byington
, 2006
)
Slide11In Conclusion …
Managers seldom recognize the
impact
of their own failure to act on their
subordinates
Many
performance issues are created not only by what supervisors do but also by what they
don’t do
And
DOING NOTHING DOES SOMETHING
Slide12THERE IS A HIGH COST
OF
SUPERVISORY INACTION
Slide13… or am I making
Much
Ado About
NOTHING
?
Slide14Slide15Slide16Slide17Slide18Slide19Slide20Slide21
The High Cost of
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