How to Manage Watchers? Fukuda’s Parable in the Age of AI (part 3)

 

Watchers comprise the bulk of your team & are the key to sustaining your transformation.  If we can turn them into Rowers, we’re in business.  If they morph into ‘Quiet Quitters’, we’re sunk. Here’s part 3 of my series on Fukuda’s Parable, based on the book Andy & Me.

“How Will You Motivate Your Team, Pascal-san?”

I quote a revered mentor who once posed this question to a fledgling manager & engineer. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Watchers neither take the oars, nor run away. They sit back & watch, waiting to see how the Rowers make out. Your job as leader is to demonstrate that the new ways of working are fun & rewarding, and to thereby engage the Watchers.

The argument goes something like this: Change is hard, but we have no choice. If we do nothing we’ll soon be obsolete. I’m proposing a Win-Win situation. We want to help you become smarter, more capable, and forever employable. And we want you to do the work that needs doing, and to help us improve.

If the Watchers see the Rowers having fun, getting results, and kicking ass, more & more of them will take an oar. If, by contrast, they see the Rowers having a tough time through lack of visible senior level support, they’ll stay on the sidelines thinking, ‘This too shall pass.’

Do not give the Grumblers a platform – that just distracts the Watchers. It’s best to either ignore Grumblers or to apply the methods of Steve Jobs or Jack Welch, which I described last time.

Quiet Quitters

Gallup polls since the pandemic suggest that quiet quitting is a growing phenomenon, especially among Gen Z. ‘I’ll do exactly what the job requires & no more.’ They won’t stay late, show up early or show up to non-mandatory meetings. Are all Watchers, quiet quitters? Not in my experience. That said, I know senior leaders are keen on Agentic AI at least in part because of frustration with quiet quitters. Other leaders respond to ‘quiet quitting’ with a tit-for-tat approach called ‘quiet firing’.  In other words, we’ll give you less & less responsibility and attention till you go away.

Engaging the Watchers

I am of the ‘everyone-deserves-a-chance’ school of leadership. The leader must lay out a Win-Win scenario and invite people to take an oar. Leaders must be storytellers & orators and must embody the organization’s core Values. Develop a management system that makes visible ‘What Should Be Happening’ versus ‘What is Actually Happening.’ Embed cultural ‘nudges’ in your operating rhythms including Strategy deployment & execution cycles, leader Obeya (Control Tower) meetings, management walks, and daily team huddles. Your Root Cause Problem Solving & Innovation processes are also an excellent source of such tacit knowledge.

Get Results Fast

Prove that ‘this stuff actually works’ with quick wins on thorny problems. I advise my mentees to create stages, forums, and ‘shows’ wherein your stars can shine. These can be Shark Tanks, Innovation Councils, Pitch Competitions, Problem Solving Fairs, and the like. The point is to create momentum by showcasing quick wins and thereby to turn Watchers into Rowers.

Be tough, be fair. Set up a Win-Win and give everybody a chance. If there are Watchers or quiet quitters still refuse to engage, that’s on them.

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis         E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org