Crashing with the Nose Up

Building a Collaborative Work Environment

Webinar by: James Robert Crow
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An airplane has four forces acting upon it during flight. Thrust provided by the engines drives the aircraft forward. Air flowing over the airframe produces Drag, holding the aircraft back. Lift provided by the wings is attempting to overcome the force of gravity which is attempting to pull the aircraft down. For flight to occur thrust must be sufficient to overcome drag and lift must overcome the pull of gravity. It is possible to crash an aircraft with the nose up

The CEO wants the organization to grow and move forward. Just as the pilot of an aircraft has his hand on the throttle applying power to overcome drag, the corporate executive has at hand motivational tools to stimulate the workers to higher levels of performance. Examples are: performance appraisals, ranking employees, forced distributions, contests, performance management, commission pay, MBO, and quotas. It is our contention that these tools can cause a phenomenon known as sub-optimization. Rather than stimulate, they add drag to the organization in the form of internal competition and a more adversarial working environment. Thus the manager using these tools in the sincere belief that he/she is driving performance may instead be crashing with the nose up. Attending this session will provide you with insight into how these “motivators” result in sup-optimization and some alternatives that can enable the organization to move toward a more collaborative working environment.

Robert Crow has been in the business of developing people for over 40 years. He has been responsible for management development in three Fortune 200 companies, and director of HR with several smaller companies. He left a high tech Japanese company to become an independent consultant over 20 years ago. A graduate of Georgia State University, he has worked in many industries and with several collages in the area. He has published articles in major journals and spoken at conferences from Calgary, Canada to Paris, France.

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