Just as kids are evaluated and put on a certain academic track from a very early age, so, too, are employees assessed and evaluated from week one on the job. Employees, like kids, often wind up "living into" the expectations set for them by those in authority, despite their true capacities. In the ever-present challenge of walking the tightrope between wanting to give employees freedom and needing to stay informed, supervisors go down one of two paths with each employee: controlling or empowering. If managers successfully negotiate this balance, the relationship and the employee typically thrive. However, as is often the case, managers can lose their balance. The set-up-to-fail syndrome (SUTFS) occurs with the balance tips toward control rather than empowerment. Whether they're aware of it or not, managers do not treat all employees the same.Their behaviour toward employees depends on the earliest perceptions of each person's performance. In particular, managers tend to behave in far more controlling ways toward their perceived weaker performers. This behaviour often results in a vicious cycle whereby an employee gets discouraged by his manager's behaviour toward him and increasingly under-performs. Not only does the employee stop trying, but the manager loses an opportunity to fully utilise the employee's strengths. Once in this cycle, managers become unable to see the employee's behaviour through any other lens, which is a recipe for disaster. Building on The Set-Up-to-Fail-Syndrome article in "Harvard Business Review" (March-April 1998), Manzoni and Barsoux offer this powerful insight into a dynamic all-too-familiar to any manager: we set the expectations for those around us. When someone seems "on" we manage him or her with enthusiasm.However, in some cases, we find ourselves avoiding contact with an employee, micro-managing, and ultimately sabotaging an employee because the relationship has clearly gone south. The authors show managers how to recognise SUTF relationships, and most importantly, how to reverse them before it's too late. The authors also show how managers can stay balanced and prevent this dysfunctional set-up-to-fail dynamic from the start, triggering positive performance spirals with all of their employees.
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
Sometimes it's easy to see how some leaders are destructive to those they lead. Poor leaders regularly impede potential, damage confidence and ruin good people. But most leaders aren’t so extreme, making their faults less obvious.
Here's what happens: an employee falters by missing a deadline or bombing a presentation, so the supervisor turns to micromanagement. But the more the manager helps, the worse the employee performs. While it may seem that the employee is failing in spite of the boss’s efforts, it turns out the opposite is true. The manager’s behaiviour and attitude are setting up the employee to fail.
This book gives that phenomenon a name: The Set-Up-To-Fail Syndrome. After ten years of studying boss subordinate relationships, leadership experts Jean – Francois Manzoni and Jean – Louis Barsouix have discovered that a manager’s over attention to poorly performing employees causes stifled self-confidence and ultimately, unrealized employee potential.
Don’t be a set up to fail manager, coach or teacher. Learn how to stop people from succumbing to the undertow of expectations, and start empowering
About the Author
Jean-Francois Manzoni is Professor of Leadership and Organizational Development at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland. His research, teaching, and consulting activities center on the management of change at the individual and organizational levels. Jean-Louis Barsoux is a Research Fellow at IMD. His doctoral thesis provided the foundation for Management in France, which won the Management Consultancies Association for Book of the Year in 1990.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Counter-intuitive, but it makes perfect sense...,
By Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Set-up-to-fail Syndrome: Overcoming the Undertow of Expectations (Paperback)
The book The Set-Up-To-Fail Syndrome: Overcoming the Undertow of Expectations by Jean-Francois Manzoni and Jean-Louis Barsoux is one of those titles that presents a concept that is counter-intuitive to most managers. But once you have it explained, the light comes on and you realize just how correct the idea is.
Contents: The Set-Up-To-Fail Syndrome; When Common Sense Fails Us; Set-Up-To-Fail - A Vicious Cycle; Labels, Biases, and Misperceptions; Colluding to Collide; The Cost Iceberg; Blinders of Our Own Making; Cracking the Syndrome; Preventing the Set-Up-To-Fail Syndrome - Lessons from the "Syndrome Busters"; Getting There; Notes; Index; About the Authors The idea here involves what happens to underperforming employees when their supervisors attempt to "help" them. The supervisor sees that a particular employee isn't at the level that's expected. Their natural first step is to start coaching them, offering feedback on how to perform better. But in far too many cases, the employee resents the implications of underperformance. This leads to either withdrawal from the job or hesitancy to make decisions for fear of making a mistake. These actions reenforce the judgement of the supervisor, leading to more "help". At that point, the downward spiral has begun, with little chance of improvement. Both sides become entrenched in their mental framework. So instead of helping an employee improve, the supervisor has unwittingly set them up for failure. The authors describe this situation in all-too-familar clarity, and I was amazed at how much sense it made once you changed your perspective. It was scary to see their research on how quickly these underperformance impressions are formed. In many cases, these signals start coming from the boss within hours. What's worse is that the residual damage can go on for years, even after the situation is resolved in one way or another. The Cracking chapter puts forth a solid format for breaking the cycle, setting expectations on both sides, and how the results can be measured without the emotional baggage that so often comes with these scenarios. Even the simple act of being aware of the syndrome can dramatically change the way you practice your management style. In terms of being practical and useful, this book delivers solid value. It doesn't matter how big or small your business is, or whether you've been managing for years or weeks. After reading Set-Up-To-Fail, you'll be unable to offer feedback or coaching in the same way again... or at least you'll feel guilty if things don't work out the way you'd expect...
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
