Say No to ‘Insubordination’

Your company is facing hard times, and you now need all your staffs to become sales-oriented.  But they don’t want to. At least they don’t say so, but they are causing worse damage by fooling you that they are following you whereas in their minds they are just in the opposite direction.   This is ‘insubordination’.

 

In a workshop to groom students into a successful professional life, I asked them some questions. But they did not reply.  So I asked twice, thrice and continued but they did not reply.  They almost held the class hostage for 15 min with what seemed a silent strike.  Everyone else except these 5, was participative.  The five did not know, but they exhibited ‘insubordination’.  Of course, I brought them in line by following the leadership techniques described later in the article. 

 

In a workshop for a resort, three staffs did not return after lunch.  During the first half also they did the opposite, spoke the opposite from the rest.  The MD of the resort was furious and lashed his anger over this ‘insubordination’ to the rest and said that ‘such insubordination will not be tolerated. Send those three to my office tomorrow.  If they don’t have a valid excuse, I’ll fire them’. 

 

The labor problems of Nepalese manufacturing industries also is a form of ‘insubordination’ that went unchecked at its earlier stage. 

 

Before we discuss how to break the vice of ‘insubordination’ we will examine what it is and how it is caused. 

 

What is it?

As managers, your job is to get people do what you say. If I take it for granted that you know what needs to be done in order for your organization to succeed, then your biggest difficulty is to align your staffs in your way of thinking.  If you can do that then you are branded as a successful manager. 

 

Most literature on management, say that if staffs are not performing, it is due to the managers’ incompetence. However, through this article I want to show it is not as black and white as this.  There is something called ‘insubordination’ or the unwillingness or inability for staffs to follow the manager’s thinking or even orders.  It is real.  Every manager who is serious about a managing career must be aware of ‘insubordination’ as both a threat that must be addressed and an obstacle that must be removed.

 

This problem of ‘insubordination’ is not a rule but an exception.  Many people call it the rotten apple.  If we could just physically remove (fire) such people from our organizations, it would have been great but neither legalities will allow it nor our ego.  Instead we must develop leadership techniques to stop and transform ‘insubordination’ into ‘follower-ship’. 

 

Superior employees

You want your staff to be active, initiative, sincere, creative, sociable, team-players, leaders, intelligent, unassuming, positive, responsible, self-motivated, ambitious, disciplined, strong in communication, inquisitive, diplomatic, masterful, holistic and enthusiastic.  Add a few more qualities and you will have the ideal employee. 

 

However, people who join our organization will have only a few of the above 20 qualities.  Come to think of it, if a staff had only 1 of the above qualities he would be a good employee.  If he had all of them he would be a god among employees.  If he had even just 10 of them, we could call him a ‘superior employee’. 

 

No boss needs training to manage ‘superior employees’ because the latter don’t need any form of supervision.  They are independent workers.  If you are lucky to have one of them onboard, then you will know what I mean: it is as if some super being has blessed your organization through the upbeat demeanor of this staff that is so contagious you never have to motivate any of your staff. 

 

‘Insubordination’ will never come from such superior employees. 

 

Qualities causing ‘insubordination’

‘Insubordination’ implies that the employee is to blame. 

 

However if we did that, then we would be doing injustice to everybody, since we are all employees. 

 

Instead what I propose is that ‘insubordination’ occurs because of some traits or negative qualities that are potent in all, but only some have managed to eradicate. 

 

Here are 20 negative qualities (antonyms of the above 20 positive qualities) that can result in ‘insubordination’ despite of the managers’ best efforts:

 

1. Inactive staffs: Their insubordination shows in that they want to do as little as possible.  It is reminiscence of their school days, where they escaped boring classes sleeping without making any noise.  Also they never did their job: that of learning.
2. Reactive: They’ll do only once told.  They will never step forward or volunteer.  With them it is as if your job is to find jobs for them to do and stay busy.  They can’t and won’t find work within the company by themselves.  If there is no work, they will just stay idle, chat, or engage in unproductive work. 
3. Insincere: They’ll say they did the job even if they did not.  They go on a marketing visit, visit some shops, go home, take a nap, come back and say most shops were closed.  They will not work hard. 
4. Dull: Tell them to think and they will be insubordinate because they have no mind of their own.  They’ll do the same thing even if the outcome is undesirable.  They can’t imagine a better way to do the same of old thing, even if someone offers to help.  
5. Assuming: They revel[b1]  in hearsay, doubts and assumptions.  They take these false views as facts and act on them. 
6. Unsociable: Tell them to be part of the group but they won’t because they don’t have the inclination, personality type or the skills to mingle freely with others.  They just seem not to like the people they work with.
7. Individualistic: They can’t think beyond ‘I’, ‘me’, and ‘mine’. 
8. Bad followers: They don’t support your initiatives and limit themselves to lip service.  They either don’t agree with you or they are too lazy to do something different or extra. 
9. Stupid: They don’t have logic or even common sense.  Learning from mistakes is something they have not been taught at school. 
10. Negative: They see always the negative side of things.  Some one doesn’t return them a greeting, they’ll think, ‘He hates me.’ Someone gives a suggestion, they’ll say, ‘He is pulling my legs to demoralize me.’
11. Irresponsible: They just don’t want to take any form or ownership of their jobs.  They don’t think they have to finish a task started. 
12. Poor thing: Motivating them is like putting water in sand.  Managers think motivation as putting water in a soil so that the seed will grow.  What happens many times is that no matter how much water you put, the plant never comes out. 
13. Complacent: They are the vestige of a long gone age, where people came on a job, just to make a living.  They don’t have the concept of career.  However the day that ‘career’ will ring a bell in them, it may be too late. 
14. Undisciplined: You make rules but breaking these, be it of punctuality or secrecy, is a habit for them.
15. Uncommunicative: You say you want an open, free and frank environment but they hide their problems like putting the dust under the carpet.  They don’t share information, knowledge and ideas.  They just keep to themselves.
16. No learning attitude: You want everyone to learn everything but they think that having finished college marked the end of learning.  They don’t want to deal with change and the new things that are needed to learn in order to cope with it. 
17. Harsh: Tell them the importance of politeness but they think being aggressive in their speech is the only way to get what they want. 
18. Superficial: They might stay in a department for years but they will not strive to be experts in that area.  They will just stick to the clerical aspect of work.
19. Narrow-thinking: They have no inkling about how any of their actions, minor or major, can impact other departments. 
20. Bored: Tell them that a bright face adds more to an office than expensive paintings and décor but no matter how hard you try to excite them, they are not impressed and keep their sulking face on.

 

What I am trying to say is that ‘insubordination’ is not usually a conscious choice aimed directly at hurting the employer’s ego.  It stems from negative qualities.  ‘Insubordination’ is the behavioral manifestation of these traits.   

 

A leadership technique for Breaking the vice of ‘insubordination’:

If you don’t address acts of ‘insubordination’ that are resultant from one or more of the 20 qualities above, then you will be sanctioning them.  So here what you should do:

1. Have your mind in the right place: Now that we know that ‘insubordination’ is not usually a conscious choice, but a manifestation of negative qualities, we must think of removing the cancer and not of killing the patient. 
2. Just Stop: If you come face to face with acts of ‘insubordination’ by a few, don’t try to ignore it. Later on it will come back to haunt you.  At least you must show the rest of the staffs that you are not happy.  Most of the time, that will be enough to get all the staffs back in the mainstream, even those who have strayed.
3. Meet: Call the insubordinate staffs to your office.
4. Confront: Tell them that you cannot accept their ‘insubordination’.  Be specific about the behavior you want.  For example in the case of students in workshop, I want them to participate actively.  In the case of the resort owner, he wanted the staff to be present in the training.  As for the company facing hard times, he wanted his staffs to make some cold calls and visits to sell their products. 
5. Don’t demonize the insubordinates: give them a chance to redeem themselves
6. Keep following up on their progress: watch if they have improved their behaviors
7. Praise when you catch them following your way of thinking: don’t miss this opportunity.  Just say, “Good”.  If you can clap your hands, even in the office or shop.  Why not? 
8. Take immediate action: change physical settings or do anything that will alter perceptions in your favor like a communiqué to all or a speech.  Remember all acts of ‘insubordination’ is instigated by a certain physical configuration like who is sitting with who, which furniture is where.  Change the circumstances and the ‘insubordination’ will not be able to occur.  This is what I did in the workshop for students, mentioned at the beginnig.  It worked. 
9. Help the staff in transforming to be able to follow you: for example it is not easy for an accountant to go in the streets and make cold calls or visits.  Show him how is it done, how he can enjoy the process and what’s in it for him. 

 

Transformation

No body wants to be a loser.  However because of unchecked ‘insubordination’ not only the employer loses but the employee loses even more.  Silence or just ‘no objection raised’ on time about ‘insubordination’, acts like fertilizers to the above 20 negative quality seeds.  Eventually the individual will self-destruct. 

 

In my management consulting work, I always urge all the staffs, no matter how big their grievances might be not to be insubordinate even passively, but to be great followers who are unsurpassed by adverse motivational conditions even like a bad boss.  If the grievance is beyond positive attitude or creative problem solving or reassurance from management, then the best option is to quit.  Usually it is never that bad. 

 

So transformation of negative qualities to positive traits will turn one from unruly to the most sought after follower. 

 

With the help of well-wishers find out which negative quality is causing symptoms of being a bad follower or insubordinate. You will probably come up with maximum 5 out of 20 qualities.  Work on them one by one.  Transform them to their positive counter parts.  As an example, let’s imagine there is staff whose ‘insubordination’ we have traced back to 5 vices: Inactive, complacent, harsh, bored, and undisciplined.  This is how his manager could advise him to transform the 5 vices into virtues:

 

1. From inactive to active: Unlearn what you learnt at school that laying low was the best strategy.  In the real world, people judge you not on exams but on behavior and attitude even before performance. 
2. From complacent to ambitious: it is easier for employers to get work out of an employee hungry for career growth than someone who plans to stagnate.  Those who grow will earn more, buy cars, houses and travel the world.  Remind yourself you don’t want to be left behind: you will mutate!
3. From harsh to diplomatic: Speak not to make enemies but friends. Make friends with people who have a way with words.
4. From bored to enthusiastic: Ask yourself, what do you gain by being a cucumber?  Watch movies starring Jim Carrey or Sharukh Khan.  Watch ‘A Coffee with Karan Johor’.  Soak in their excitement. 
5. From undisciplined to disciplined: Reward yourself for every rules to don’t break. 

 

Commitment to pursue and to monitor

The employee should commit to complete his metamorphism and the employer should commit to monitor his progress. 

 

Once again ‘insubordination’ must be checked on time, for the good of all: boss, the organization and the staff himself. 

 

Many companies are suffering from this tolerance of ‘insubordination’ decades after it first occurred.  The new leaders are like fighting a giant monster that is slowing the fulfillment of their visions. 

 

Don’t leave a legacy of ‘insubordination’ behind you.  Start today and eradicate it from the root before it becomes a gigantic monster.