From Adizes Institute

A few years ago the Czech prime minister was asked to state his political goal for the Czech Republic. His answer was: to make the Czech Republic as boring as the Scandinavian countries! With that response, he conveyed the wish for predictability, safety, coherence, and the fair distribution of wealth. It was an interesting perspective on our Scandinavian societies: boring, but ideal.

During the past twenty years, through my work as an Adizes associate, I have experienced firsthand both boring and very colorful cultures (and organizations).

What I call "colorful cultures" possess the opposite characteristics of what the Czech prime minister found in Scandinavia. Typically, these nations and organizations live with constant unpredictability and lack of consistency - but I have found that this does not necessarily make people more miserable.

When Scandinavian organizations measure their own condition, they look at employee satisfaction as well as customer satisfaction as primary indicators. There are numerous so-called "climate" or "temperature" surveys, in which employees are asked a million questions in order to ascertain how satisfied they are with their workplace. When I see these assessments, I always get the feeling that resources are being wasted measuring the wrong factors; and furthermore, that the measuring itself contributes to giving employees the wrong idea about what really matters.

The most satisfied employees I have met are in stable organizations with a high degree of intrinsic and extrinsic predictability. What kind of companies are these? Without exception, they are bureaucratic in nature: monopolies, public sector organizations, or organizations with some kind of political protection, where the workload is moderate and the pressure not too tough. The focus is mainly intrinsic and focused on "rights" and benefits - for the employees themselves, not for the customers.

Where have I met the most discontented employees? In the same companies, only later, after they have been forced to change because of increased competition or external threats (e.g., the liberalization of market conditions).

If an employee satisfaction assessment were to be conducted in such a company, what do you think would be the result? I hardly need an extensive study in order to predict that the assessment will reveal stress, dissatisfaction, mistrust in management, accusations of poor leadership, etc. Invariably, according to the employees, in order to improve the "satisfaction barometer," the leadership should simply reduce the rate of change. The employees who want to return to the old status quo should be allowed to dominate and to delay necessary changes. In other words: the leaders should simply stop leading.

Why are satisfied employees, rather than being a goal, actually a symptom that something is wrong?

Because satisfied employees are less creative!

Satisfied employees will not go the extra mile in order to please the customer. (They are going home at 4 o'clock; that is why they are satisfied!)

Satisfied employees are inflexible; they will fight change instead of adapting to it!

Satisfied employees are conservative!

Satisfied employees want more satisfaction - they simply cannot get enough!

Satisfied employees hold union meetings ("Scandinavian strikes") while the passengers suffer and the company goes bankrupt (example: Scandinavian Airline Systems).

Satisfied employees are satisfied with their leaders as long as the leaders do not lead!

Think of the lovely pearl: it is the result of constant irritation by sand corn inside the mussel. Satisfied employees absolutely refuse to allow any sand corns to enter their "shelf," and of course they will never themselves become sand corns.

Satisfaction (with work environment, wages, management, etc.) is not the relevant measure of a company's environment.

What should be measured is the level of mutual trust and respect.

One can be dissatisfied, yet still have both mutual trust and respect. One can surely be satisfied and yet have a low degree of mutual trust and respect.

As long as there is sufficient mutual trust and respect, the organization, the enterprise, or the nation can handle even the largest challenges, problems, and changes without destructive conflicts.

Darwin's expression "the survival of the fittest" is usually misinterpreted to mean "the strongest will survive." That is not what Darwin proved. To the contrary, his point was not that it is the strongest or the most intelligent of species that will survive, but the most adaptable ones!

This is also true for organizations and nations. We need to adapt to change, and that is far more important than current satisfaction (which will be temporary anyway, unless we change).

So what has all this to do with boring Scandinavian societies?

From the Czech prime minister's (and no doubt many others') point of view, Scandinavians live in an enviable society. As a matter of fact, I also think we do; I would not swap with anyone. I am myself quite satisfied! Nevertheless, we should not become self-satisfied -that is,too full of ourselves. There is a clear tendency in politics to seek the most frictionless way ahead. "Spin doctors," the media, and elitist "besser-wissers"(those who think they know better) are setting the agenda and portraying it as the will of the majority. Political leadership is more and more about how to please and satisfy everyone: "Don't make waves"could be the slogan of all political parties today.

I see similarities in companies where the leaders do not dare to lead, to address disputes with necessary firmness and lead the way, because they fear receiving a low score in the next satisfaction assessment.