Bizarre Ways

Why do people at either end of the chain of command sometimes relate to each other in bizarre and unreasonable ways? After all, most of these folks are not idiots, so what makes them act as if they are.

One theory goes like this. When a delicate, unresolved problem hangs around long enough to become troublesome, the number of people brave enough to take it on diminishes until no one wants to touch it. Rather than risk being wrong or making a mistake, those nearest to it step away and let it drift upward. As the problem rises, it becomes more pungent the higher it goes. It eventually floats to the top where it solidifies and begins to stink. When the stench becomes unbearable, management delicately maneuvers the odiferous object into a problem-separator (fan) that breaks it into smaller chunks that spread more easily.

Shocked by the unexplained splattering, those now covered with the "stuff" suddenly realize this is the second time they've seen it. The first time they didn't accept it as their stuff, so they let it float upward hoping it would get management's attention. Well, it got their attention and now they've sending it back in a form that's slippery and much harder to handle.

What Comes Down Also Goes Up

The theory also works in reverse. Sometimes it's the troops who overreact when management's attempts to solve a problem through delegation.

Take for example the bus drivers from a small school district who organized a public rally to protest the decision of their superintendent. He'd ordered the drivers to fill out an equipment safety checklist prior to taking the bus out on a run. Much like the preflight list airline pilots complete before taking off. The directive was in response to a recent series of breakdowns and accidents, which were caused by faulty equipment.

Simultaneously, the highway safety department had issued a warning notice stating the district had thirty days to initiate corrective action or face revocation of their operating permits. Introducing the equipment safety checklist was the superintendent's way of keeping the buses rolling until a permanent solution could be devised.

The drivers believed safety would improve if the bus mechanics would maintain the busses properly. They reasoned that stopping to complete a safety check would make them late for pickups thus upsetting the children and their parents. Unwittingly, the well-intentioned superintendent had stepped into the middle of a long running dispute between the drivers and the mechanics. The stuff was about to hit the fan this time because it appeared as if he had sided with the mechanics.

Realizing the situation was getting out of control, the superintendent asked for a special session to discuss a resolution. The bus drivers and their supporters came to the board meeting armed for a fight. When the superintendent rose to speak, he was drowned out when the audience began to stomp and shout. Repeated calls for order were met with loud boos and blasts from air horns. Trying to control this unruly crowd was hopeless, so the chairperson banged the gavel and closed the meeting. But, it was far from over.

The following day, the superintendent dashed off a terse memo to the bus drivers in which he called them "trouble makers" and used the words "rude, disruptive, loud, obnoxious" to describe their behavior a the board meeting.

Undaunted, the bus drivers had T-shirts printed with an outline of a school bus on the front and the words: RUDE - DISRUPTIVE - LOUD - OBNOXIOUS printed in an arch-like manner above the bus. Printed on the backside in large block letters was the statement: HERE COMES TROUBLE. They proudly wore the shirts to work, which infuriated the superintendent even more.

Time ran out-thirty days passed with no resolution. The state inspectors swooped in on schedule. Finding no evidence of improved maintenance or safety procedures, they grounded all the buses. Now the stuff was twanging off the fan blades like hail stones on a tin roof.

There's more to this silly story, but let's fast forward to the end. Eventually, an outside negotiator got the drivers and mechanics to accept that it was their collective responsibility to get the children safely to and from school. Once they agreed the issue was about performance and not about personalities, they were able to set aside their dispute and come up with a maintenance and safety check system that satisfied the state. The buses were soon back on the road.