The 5 Irrefutable Laws of the PARADOX

By : Professor Datuk Dr. A Rahman A Jamal

There are many occurrences or practices at work which are similar across many organizations or industries. The following 5 practices which I labeled as paradoxes have come from my own observation over 30 years of experience in the health service and in the academia. Read the following with an open mind and see if you can detect the phenomenon happening in your own unit, department or institution.

1. Perform well and you will be burden with more work. Those who are competent and perform well are sometimes (or mostly) given the most number of tasks in an organization. The paradox here is clear. Bosses usually take the easy way out by giving extra tasks to those who perform. Rewards are rather limited in government service especially so for the support staff. Those who perform well should be rewarded rather than burdened with extra work. Yes, they must be given new tasks but do not avoid giving others too. The worst thing that can happen is when those who are not performing, get promoted! In the academic setting, those who are already publishing 3-4 journals per year should not be repeatedly asked to produce more. It is more appropriate to tell those who are not publishing at all to start doing research or if they are not capable, to take up more teaching or service responsibilities. My advice to the bosses out there, who has been burdening the same individual or the same group of people all the time, don’t overwork your staff. Be aware of your good people who are doing multiple responsibilities. Beware too that there are others who are doing the minimum required (or even less) and yet are drawing similar salaries as those who perform. Distribute responsibilities as equal as possible. Yes, push your star performers to the limits but not beyond.

2. The USUS syndrome. This stands for the ‘You Suggest You Suffer’ syndrome. USUS is also the Malay word for the intestines. This is a real phenomenon especially in an environment where people try to avoid extra work. Very often we see in meetings if someone comes up with a brilliant idea or suggestion, the boss or the meeting itself will make the decision that the one who suggested the idea will undertake the task to prepare a working paper or to take action. I bet those guys who are given the tasks will have a sensation similar to having a spasm in their intestines, hence the USUS Just kidding! Usually the ones with the brilliant ideas are also the ones who already have a lot of responsibilities. Those who keep quiet during meetings and don’t bother to suggest anything, always claim that they work smart. Yes, they are right in the sense that they are smart enough to avoid responsibilities. Why do we bring these types of people into the organization in the first place anyway?

3. We want great ideas but we don’t allow ‘dissent’. This is a common paradox. We want people to come up with wonderful comments, ideas, and suggestions but we are also brutally quick to reject them. Times have changed. The corporate world now accepts that encouraging dissent can improve an organization (check out an article in the Harvard Business Review). What is it with our Asian culture that many of us cannot take criticisms well, and worse if it comes from people ranked below us? We should always compliment our team members every time they give a comment or an idea, even if we personally do not like them (or the ideas). Another golden advice for leaders out there, please do not just take the ‘yes men’ into your team. You may have very smooth management meetings, but trust me they won’t be any enrichment in terms of opposing ideas as well as getting honest feedback. If you are conducting a brainstorming session, try this out. Divide the team into two groups. Tell each group to provide an honest critique of the other group’s ideas. I would prefer a heated discussion on an idea rather than having everyone at the table giving an instant 100% thumbs-up to it without any debate.

4. Leaders who cannot lead. This is a clear paradox. If you are a leader but cannot lead, then what are you? If some of you think that you are a born leader, think again as many leadership gurus will say ‘that’s nonsense’. If you want to be an effective leader, you not only have to learn the leadership skills but you have to put them into practice. In the academic institution (I bet in many other institutions too) when someone is appointed as the head, everyone expects him/her to lead superbly. To make things worse, this ‘leader’ immediately thinks that the leadership skills are automatically programmed into his body and mind. I personally believe that we should provide adequate leadership training (not just a one or two weekend retreats) to those whom we have identified as future leaders. I have seen heads of department (with a tenure of 3 years each) who never or rarely call for departmental meetings for some lousy reasons. One reason given was that every time there is department meeting, the members will quarrel among themselves. If you a leader of an organization and you don’t even have the guts to call for a meeting with your staff members, please tell yourself that no one is respecting your leadership or simply no one is following your leadership.

5. The one who puts in the effort is not given due credit. This is again quite common. Watch out you bosses who take credit for the tasks done by your staff. Stop doing this. Praise loudly and publicly the individual or the team responsible for the project. For those professors and supervisors, please don’t put your name as first author for the research paper which your post-graduate students have written. Read the guidelines on authorship (British Medical Journal has a good one) and understand where your name should be. As the supervisor and professor, you are supposed to be the last or senior author or corresponding author (this is at least true for medical sciences). Don’t take the thunder away from your student just because you want to be the person who will be cited (e.g. if your name is Jamal and your ego tells you that you want to see Jamal et al 2014 appear in other people’s publications). Give all that credit to your post-graduate student!