Truth over harmony

Working with a partner firm not too long ago, I heard that one of their base beliefs was to value "truth over harmony".  I wrote that down at the time and decided to write about it, since I thought it was probably one of the most productive concepts I've heard in quite a while.

Truth over harmony posits that too often we interact in ways that shade the truth, or simply avoid the truth to maintain some semblance of working harmony in an organization or team.  Often, the naked truth about the quality of a person's work, or their commitment, or their ideas, can be hard to deliver.  So, instead of telling the straightforward truth, we skirt the issue, avoid the decision and continue on.  I've worked in larger corporations where individuals were actively disengaged from the actual decisions and workflow, since no one had the guts to tell them that they were being cut out of the process due to poor work habits or low quality output.  Rather than tell a person that they needed to improve their capabilities and offer coaching or training, or suggest a new position or career, these individuals were sent to a small backwater and given special assignments that kept them out of the way.

Valuing harmony over truth means that eventually we have two work streams - the one that's defined on paper and the one that actually occurs in practice.  We find ways to work around individuals since we are concerned that their input won't be valuable, they'll take too long to accomplish a task or their feelings will be hurt if we reject their ideas.  What happens next is an informal process is developed and more and more work is heaped on the people who are willing to take on the work or are judged to be able to create "results".

Clearly, dealing with the truth - telling people why their work isn't up to snuff and helping them improve, or working through a long-simmering dispute rather than diverting around it - takes time.  But as these workarounds and dodges become ingrained, entirely new work environments are created - which actually cut out a significant portion of the workforce.  So a small number of people is performing virtually no value added work, while the rest of the organization finds ways to tip toe around these folks.

Telling the truth can be hard, and perhaps we all need a bit thicker skin and to learn how to break bad news to people who may need to hear it.  Unlike Lake Woebegone, we can't all be above average.  We all have our weaknesses and blindspots that can be improved, but too often we are unaware of the impact these are having since no one will tell us.  Another analogy that rings true here is the removal of a band-aid.  You can pull it off fast with a lot of short, sharp pain, or remove it slowly with less pain.  Or I guess in some cases you can simply ignore it and hope it will go away, which is the prevailing management style in some organizations - ignore the low performers and instead of training them or coaching them, hope they'll go away.

Comments

[Lee]

Truth and harmony are orthogonal concepts. It's perfectly possible to have both at once. Telling the truth is not "hard", nor does it require hurting people. Fixing your head so your truth isn't hurtful requires personal attitude work though. That's when you get REAL harmony: when people don't store up nasty thoughts about each other in their heads, and then act like they're just being decent honest people by letting them out to hurt others.