I first read Management of the Absurd: Paradoxes in leadership about a decade ago, way before I familiarized myself with the American corporate culture and became a manager myself. I knew it left an imprint on me but only when revisiting it last year, I realized how many of its ideas affected my approach to work and life situations.
Now, in the next few articles, I would love to share some of them with you.
So what is this all about?
In short, Management of the Absurd is a book about dilemmas in management.
This is an unusual perspective because as a society (especially its corporate wing), we are fixated on finding solutions.
Problem solving stares at us from the pages of corporate training, our own resumes, PowerPoint presentations, business books, and social media. The moment I open my LinkedIn feed, I am greeted by a dozen of well-meaning checklists, bullet points, and info graphs eager to solve any issue I might face in my professional life.
But what if there was an area (and a very big one) where we were not able to apply a bullet point checklist simply because we would not be confronted with a problem?
A different way of thinking
The book’s author, Richard Farson, was a PhD, psychologist, former CEO, and educator, who collaborated with Carl Rogers, the legendary founder of humanistic psychology.
For Farson, it is not enough to make you consider a certain notion, theory, or idea.
He aims to challenge your very way of thinking and seeing things – and he means it.
“All of us like to think that human affairs are essentially rational […]. Small wonder, then, that it may require some effort to accept the ideas presented in this book – that life is absurd, that human affairs usually work not rationally but paradoxically, and that (fortunately) we can never quite master our relationships with others”.
Management of the Absurd uses the below dilemma to introduce absurdity in managing human relations.
Opposites coexist and enhance each other
One of the “symptoms” of adulthood is that we start recognizing many shades and colors, instead of seeing the world as black and white.
But what if the opposites were even more connected than we usually tend to think?
Farson illustrates this paradox with an example any worker is all well familiar with: corporate communication.
While a healthy organization requires full and accurate communication (as your leaders keep telling you at every Townhall meeting ever), paradoxically, for this very organization to remain healthy, it simultaneously requires a certain level of “distortion and deception.”
Or, in “corporate terms,” “diplomacy and tact.”
If you always hated the office politics, you might think that this idea confirms that everyone at Corporate lies. But reality has more nuance to it.
Imagine you have a CEO who was put under a spell to always tell the things as they are.
It’s the beginning of the year, time for the All Hands Meeting where she must present a new strategy.
Your executive comes up to the podium, presents the strategy and concludes her time with the following statement:
“All – my team came up with this plan in hopes to maintain our competitive advantage in the new year. But it is going to be hard and if I am being honest with myself, the chances of us failing are very high. In this case, we are looking at the layoffs towards the end of the year. In fact, I am currently working with the HR department to prepare a couple options so we have them ready just in case.”
If the presented plan had had any chance to succeed, she just killed it entirely. And at least half of the company started updating their resumes before the meeting concluded.
So, while candid communication within the organization is very important and constant contradiction between what leaders say and do leads to all sort of trouble – from lower productivity to a shattered public image – certain level of “distortion and deception” preserves organizational health and effectiveness.
In other words, the very opposites – honesty and dishonesty – come hand in hand to protect the organization and let it thrive in the long term.
Why does it matter?
For many reasons.
But essentially, because acknowledging the paradoxes you face as a leader/manager/human being allows you to make better decisions.
Look at it this way:
- If you are faced with a problem, you can find solutions. So, the decisions you make will be focused on the best way to eliminate the problem.
- If you are faced with a dilemma (which is by definition unsolvable), decisions you make will be about minimizing consequences of the chosen alternative. You cannot remove a dilemma; you can only cope with it.
Let’s take our unfortunate enchanted CEO.
Imagine, she is a good leader and truly cares about her organization. Yes, she is working with HR to prepare for possible layoffs but she still hopes it will not get to that.
She understands that if she tells the entire company the exact state of things, she might as well just shut down the business altogether.
She also realizes that if she was able to completely alter her message and state that everything was going great, then come layoffs in the end of the year, they would destroy the morale and shutter trust in the long run.
So, between total honesty and total dishonesty, what will she choose?
She chooses to place the right accents.
“All – I will not sugarcoat it – we are facing increasingly tough competition, and this year is a defining point for the company. My team prepared this plan with the intent and hope to maintain our competitive advantage. We need to work very hard – all of us – as we can, as we did before. And if we do, there is a chance we will succeed. Let’s make it happen”.
In the next article we will dive deeper into Management of the Absurd exploring paradoxes of human relations, communication, and politics. If you liked this article, make sure to subscribe to this blog so you do not miss the next one.
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