Pretenders and Koels: Organisational Narratives

 Robbery?

Have you ever felt cheated at work? 

You did all the work and someone else robbed you of the credit! 

For many career men and women, this  may be a daily affair. If you have never come across such a situation in your career; you could be amongst the handful few on the planet; otherwise you may be immune or insensitive enough not even to recognise or register this universal phenomenon.

Have you ever cheated someone of their credits? No. Never; I don't ever do such unfair things!! If one has a few human beings on the ladder steps below them in the organisation, such an event would certainly have happened with or without one’s knowledge. Even if it hadn't  actually happened, it is unlikely that someone below you in the ladder hasn't  thought so. If we have climbed the hierarchical ladder, at least sometime in our career, each one of us would have stood accused of giving credit to a pretender. If you haven't been told so, it is likely that you are either uncommunicative or unapproachable. The question remains; are we big hearted enough to accept what we willingly or otherwise perpetrated? 

Et Tu Natura?

I enjoy sitting out on the veranda, looking at my garden and sipping coffee. I enjoy gardening and love my small garden, mostly potted plants. This is where I saw a management lesson unfold!  

Last Sunday, I noticed that the Orchid at the corner had flowered. It looked beautiful. A single stem, not very conspicuously coloured, beautiful nevertheless. It looked as if it emerged from the basket hanging above but actually it was the shoot from the plant potted well below. That plant had shown no symptoms of flowering anytime in the near future and I was in a mood to chop it away. It was on a second thought that I decided to retain it.  Then, when it set forth its shoot and flowered, it looked as if the plant on top of it owned the shoot. The one above stole the thunder from the real source. It would have been a tragedy if I had chopped it off. Despite knowing each plant individually, for a moment I gave credits to the pretender. But there are other natural phenomena that are even more cruel. Brood parasites abound in nature. Koels use Crows to propagate their young. In the process of laying its eggs, koels are known to actually push as many crow’s eggs out of the nest. Crows unaware of the tragedy Nurtures koels eggs. Koel chicks hatch first and consume the maximum food that the crow brings. An intelligent crow is beaten by a smart Koel. Interestingly, organisations nowadays promote the culture of smart working!

Credit Grabbers and Koels 

In every organisation, there are many pretenders, who practice the art of grabbing credit for someone else's job. They may do it either in subtle ways or even making it obvious. It is not restricted to the lower levels in the hierarchy. It is omnipresent across all levels and all verticals. Modus operandi may differ. As a result, a thorough and hardworking individual could end up being labelled an underperformer. It becomes rampant if the evaluator or supervisor himself is incompetent or has come up through the ‘pretend and grab’ route. They slowly erode the kernel from within.

Organisational koels are not rare either but they like brood parasites can be even more dangerous. They deliberately, covertly or overtly, raise obstacles in the path of a colleague or subordinate to disrupt duties being discharged. Some of them even sabotage the systems and processes to achieve their ulterior motives. The management may not realise the presence of brood parasitic activity. It can come in endless ways. At the lower levels it may be by doing a shoddy job to take advantage of a facility given by the management. At the supervisory levels it could be connivance or fear of correction or both. Though not very obvious it actually cuts the organisation at the roots leading to its failure. Organisations in the service industry are easy prey to brood parasitic activities. 

When we are vested with the authority of assessing output of people below us in the hierarchy, it is possible that we give credits where not due, robbing someone who actually toiled. More the number of subordinates to be assessed, the easier it is to go wrong. Weak systems, inadequate checks and balances can help koels make a killing. 

Who stands to lose from koels and pretenders who grab others’ credits and how?

Losers

If the organisation is proprietary in nature, the loss likely to be suffered would be personal for the proprietor. Since the loss would be felt personally, investigations would be prompt and therefore corrective interventions are likely to be applied sooner than later. In non-proprietary organisations, since the management may not realise the short term or long term losses immediately, pretenders and koels are likely to be at play more often. Larger the organisation, higher the probability of multiplicity in hierarchical interactions and more remote the chance of discovery, more conducive the environment for pretenders and Koels to thrive. While the pretender or koel may continue to reap rewards, the organisation may be hopelessly hemorrhaging. Damages inflicted would be cumulative and might never get attributed to any one individual. Therefore the necessity of putting systems and methods in place to prevent such practices becomes more inevitable in large organisations.

The golden rule to remember is pretenders and koels may make the sun look shining, to make their hay, but they would be pushing the organisation into darkness, sometime for eternity. There are enough examples too.