June 13th, 2008
How often are we to jump to conclusions
without practicing unbias to come to the real reason or answer?
Think of a time when you were in a
position when something occurred to which your head was unfairly put
on the line. You begged and pleaded but those efforts went against a
brick wall, and the resulting punishment left you feeling jaded, bitter
and resentful at their lack of
Now think of how those must feel once
you jump to conclusions on the people you work with, family or friends.
Take it a step further, and think of
how the staff members at whom you're blaming for an incident that is
clearly a misunderstanding and, because of this, you're putting their
career on the line.
Many managers and HR folks tend to
jump the "Let's fire them!" bandwagon without giving an unbiased
approach to the situation. The blame falls solely on the manager's head
for taking this weird and supposed "moral" process.
They gather what they call "evidence"
and using it to terminate someone. Most of the time it's the result
of a mental dislike and is not the cause of neutrality, taking into
account everything that happened, even the actions of the manager.
But managers are infallable! We've
been taught for centuries that those in power have the highest degree
of knowledge, wisdom and vision and that we should all heed their will
and sacrifice our own.
Yet history has taught us that leaders
in that capacity do not offer any more vision, insight or wisdom than
the conventional person. Leaders and "bosses" in recent years
have gathered us to believe certain things, telling us fabrications
merely so that we'll side with them and easily shut down any rebellion.
Heaven forbid the leader be wrong!
This statement is far from the truth.
The Canadian Liberal Party was targetted
by the Federal Tories, claiming scandals and mismanagement and lies
to the public regarding specific actions while the Tories (Conservatives)
proclaimed innocence and moral superiority.
The public bent and listened to these
words. For what helps conquer group trust when someone appears to have
"purer" words or stature than those who are already in a role
of the same capacity. The punishment to the Liberals was their utter
defeat at the polls, putting Harper in the lead and decimating the Liberals.
Yet recent news has shown that the
now in-power Conservative Government is not as innocent as they claim
to be. The antics involving former Minister Maxine Bernier and Julie
Couillard and her ties to a rogue biker gang have just begun to let
the floodgates open for scandal to flood the once-perfect Tories.
Even George W. Bush, the man who lead
the word to believe Iraq and Afghanistan were harbouring terrorists,
took advantage of the emotions from 9/11 in order to instigate the war
that is now plaguing the US's economic and political structure.
The funny thing is that upon final
and unbiased investigations, Iraq wasn't holding any weapons of mass
destruction nor was Afghanistan. What makes this funny? Bush was told
time and time again that no weapons of that calibre were found nor active
in Iraq.
These actions are all the result of
jumping to conclusions and improperly executing a neutral unbiased investigation.
Too many times people, especially in
management positions, put personal bias ahead of clear judgement. Like
in the case of a termination, most of the time it's due to a personality
conflict and an inability to discover what the core reason is for the
behaviour or actions of the person being targetted.
A true HR practitioner would put aside
the pangs of management and take the time to fully investigate the situation
before being lured into the clutches of an overzealous management figure.
Even if it does come down to being
put on the staff member's head, that shouldn't mean a quick clear-cut
resolution of termination. If that continued then practically everyone
would have been fired at least once.
In this case, sit down and openly talk
to these people. Discover exactly what happened before jumping to conclusions.
Develop some form of guideline to have that person and the issue resolved,
using humane approaches to help re-establish communication and the human
factor.
This way, it prevents you from experiencing
unwanted liability, internal dissent and a tainted image in the eyes
of your people.
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