Ferdinand F. Fournies Why Employees

Ferdinand F. Fournies

Why Employees Don't Do What They're Supposed to Do - and What to do About it

Ferdinand F. Fournies' book is packed full of useful information for supervisors, bosses and for employees, too - especially those workers who want to keep a leg up on what their supervisors are thinking and reading. And part of what makes the book enjoyable and interesting is Fournies' humor, directness / bluntness and sometimes cryptic approach. He seems to be sure of himself, and upon close inspection, he seems to be logical, and correct. For example, on page 9, he points out that he may be expected to "motivate my office staff," but he doesn't know how to do it. "So I scream and threaten."

And that is followed, as all of his opening paragraphs are, by a series of bullet points, including "what your employees are saying to each other": "Whatever you do, don't tell the boss you don't know how to do something"; "if you don't know how to do it, fake it...they will never trace the error back to you"; among other silly but realistic rationalizations employees invoke to mask their ignorance, indifference, or incompetence.

In presenting his style and plan for selling, Fournies offers Part I, "The Hidden Reasons for Employee Nonperformance"; in Part I he deftly describes16 typical stumbling blocks that bosses / supervisors run into, and he has a solution for all 16, of course; and he offers a Part II with approaches that get you "the best results," including "preventative management" approaches.

Clearly, Fournies is effective, and has had hands-on experience as an employee and a boss; otherwise, he wouldn't be writing a book; but does what he offers, and will what he offers, work for everyone in management? Probably not; but for those who have been in administration - or are planning to get into administration and/or management - there are enough of the 16 problems and solutions to make half, or more, of them, pertinent and workable for any professional.

Meanwhile, what brings success to management, Fournies writes, is being specific with employees about precisely what it is that the worker is supposed to do. On page 14 he writes that "there are managers who complain that their sales representatives don't make enough sales calls," but, he adds, the sales staff have not been issued instructions as to how many calls they are expected to make per day, per week, even per month. The message here is, good communication as to what a manager expects is part of the manager's job - not giving vague instructions and being upset when work isn't done up to vague expectations.

In Chapter 7, "There Is No Positive Consequence to Them for Doing it" (page 33), Fournies points out that "human behavior research indicates that people do things for which they are rewarded, and conversely, do not do those things for which they are not rewarded." The question then becomes, if people are not going to out of their way to contribute to the success of the business or office unless they get rewards, what rewards are appropriate? The following may seem almost "no-brainer" in its simplicity, but Fournies explains there are two kinds of rewards: a) those externally delivered that are tangible ("jellybeans," "money," a "trophy") or intangible ("a verbal compliment" or a "smile"); b) and those internal (people talk to themselves about achieving some goal and say things like, "I am an honest person," or "I am a hard worker," or "I am working less and getting away with it") rewards.

What Fournies points out - cogently and importantly - is that "small rewards received immediately and frequently seem to have more effect on performance than larger rewards delivered long after performance" (34).

In Chapter 12 ("There Is No Negative Consequence to Them for Poor Performance") (58-60), Fournies takes on a difficult problem: the slacker employee that even though he or she is incompetent, and has a personnel file jammed with negative reports, just keeps getting bounced to different departments and hangs on. Sometimes, the author explains, management just doesn't know the subordinate is failing, and that is a failing of management; meantime, when an employee is performing work they like badly, "assign work they do not like to do"; and, this seems a "no-brainer" again, but "when an employee willfully performs badly, demote him or her," or "deny or delay raises until performance improves."