Articles

High performers and their low visibility

by Irina Ivan 

Contrary to what is commonly believed, in the day-to-day life very few managers are "bad" in the literal sense of this word. Managers who fire people for no real reason, who scream, who harass their employees are exceptions. The reality is a lot softer and sharper than this. Most of our managers are easy-going people who unconsciously persist in doing small mistakes that eventually drive away the top talent. One of the most common mistakes of managers is making people feel invisible.

"Invisible Employee: Realizing the hidden potential in everyone" is the title of a book published in 2006 by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton. Herein, the invisible employees are referred to as that "smart people who keep their heads down and never do more than what is asked of them" because of a lack of recognition of their work and even of their person. According to the authors, this kind of behavior - "staying hidden in the corporate shadows, doing just enough to get by" - ends up by sabotaging the efforts to build outstanding organizations. The range of "invisible employees" does not include only the top performers whose work and efforts are not acknowledged and valued. Low skilled workers or people who squeeze throughout the daily tasks, refusing to perform and take responsibility, preferring to remain in their corner rather than being held accountable, are also invisible sides of an organization.

However, for the time being we will only refer to those remarkable, yet not remarked people, representing the most valuable asset that an organization affords to lose a little each day.
To provide a full understanding on the subject, in their book, Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton establish an analogy between the organizational life and the legend of the Kopani Island's inhabitants - the Highlanders and the Wurc-Ur tribe, also called the "Invisible People". Owners of the mountainous island, the Highlanders had brought the Wurc-Ur tribe to help them pick the treasures from the top of the mountains. In time, Highlanders gave up venturing on the mountains to gather the treasures, leaving this task to the Wurc-Ur tribe. Still, they kept the name of Highlanders, as a symbol of their high status. Finding it harder and harder to face the Highlanders' indifference to their efforts, Wurc-Ur decided not to show their faces anymore and learned to master the art of invisibility. This is how they ended up being also called the "Invisible People", as they showed up only to fill in the vaults of the Highlanders with jewels brought from the mountains. Rarely were they seen. In exchange of the jewels they received, the Highlanders left the Fruits of Laborer that the Invisible People needed to survive.

Things happen similarly in the workplace. Paradoxally, companies are full of people who perform their job well and who, in spite of their competence, are treated as if they do not exist. They are taken for granted just because their work is a part of an organizational routine. The stuff they do are so basic for the organizations they work for, that no one ever bothers to acknowledge the importance of their work, not to speak about public recognition and rewarding. This attitude of carelessness and disregard is wonderfully illustrated through the story of a certain Allison, evoked in the same book. Working in the Public Relations department of a bank, one of Allison's main responsibilities was to write the cost-for-living report for the corporate economist. She was happily involved in a cozy routine, until one day when she surprisingly discovered that she is an Invisible Employee: "I was walking down the hall and overheard him [the economist] speaking with my boss. He said ‘Could you get this over the girl who does the cost-for-living report?' The girl? It was like someone had punched me in the stomach. We'd worked together for more than a year. I'd improved the quality of the report and media reach. I'd spent hundred of hours in his project, met with him at least twice a month. And he didn't even remember my name [...] He didn't see me as a person. I was just a cog in the machinery."
When their people become fully integrated and the work they are performing presents no more secrets for them, managers usually think that there is no point in showing them they are important. They think there is no point in offering them their time, being convinced that when their people need help they come and ask for it. As if this would go without saying and reinforcing it would be a waste of time. Good performers are usually self-motivated people, driven by results and the sense of accomplishment they get from the well-done work itself. They do not need a tap on the shoulder and not even a "thank you" each time they have an accomplishment. Still, they need to be shown somehow that their work matters.

In her article "Motivation.11 tips to motivate your team", Michele Eby relates the experience of a friend of hers who, just like Allison, found herself invisible for her new boss, in spite of the great job she had done until then: "She told me that he [the boss] occasionally commented on her work and on his first day had told her he was happy to have her in his group. "He's just happy because I'm not a problem," she told me. "Some days, I don't even see him. It's like I don't exist." She resigned a few weeks later and her boss never saw it coming. She didn't quit her job. She quitted her boss.".

Indeed, not being a problem for the employer is sometimes equal to....not being at all. Most often, managers rather focus on praising the performance of the top-employees or on helping low skilled people perform better. Paying attention to the others who come in between is far from being considered important or even necessary.

In an article issued by Harvard Business Review in 2003, professor DeLong ranks workers in A, B and C categories, defining them as it follows:

• A players: companies' stars, rainmakers, their top 15%

• B players: "the heart and soul" of any organization; loyal, needing less feedback and handholding; "the ones who do their work without fanfare or fuss"; "the keepers of institutional memory during hard times such as a merger or downsizing".

• C players: the bottom 15% of a company's staff.

Professor DeLong emphasizes on the risks that managers expose companies to by ignoring B players. According to him, if B players are long enough ignored by their managers, they begin to see themselves as low performers.

It is said that indifference kills. Overlooking your people, from simply ignoring their physical presence to ignoring their efforts and results, can restrain their potential, keen interest in work, commitment, and performance. Briefly, indifference can kill talent.

Refferences:

Adeogun, Joann (2007), Invisible Employee: Realizing the Hidden Potential in Everyone, Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, http://findarticles.com

Eby, Michelle, Motivation.11 tips for motivating your team, http://www.media-partners.com

Gostick, Adrian; Elton, Chester, Invisible Employee: Realizing the Hidden Potential in Everyone, Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship (excerpt), http://www.amazon.com

Lagace, Martha (2003), Are you supporting your B players?, http://hbswk.hbs.edu