{"id":120,"date":"2021-12-22T14:33:23","date_gmt":"2021-12-22T14:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/?p=120"},"modified":"2021-12-27T21:36:38","modified_gmt":"2021-12-27T21:36:38","slug":"the-ugly-side-of-no-surprises-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/the-ugly-side-of-no-surprises-management\/","title":{"rendered":"The ugly side of \u201cNo Surprises\u201d Management"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"120\" class=\"elementor elementor-120\" data-elementor-settings=\"[]\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-section-wrap\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-378af67e elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"378af67e\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-5d34680e\" data-id=\"5d34680e\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-dd212e1 elementor-widget elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"dd212e1\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.5.0 - 12-12-2021 *\/\n.elementor-heading-title{padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title[class*=elementor-size-]>a{color:inherit;font-size:inherit;line-height:inherit}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-small{font-size:15px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-medium{font-size:19px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-large{font-size:29px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-xl{font-size:39px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-xxl{font-size:59px}<\/style><h1 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-default\">The ugly side of \u201cNo Surprises\u201d Management<\/h1>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-2aa6a3c3 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"2aa6a3c3\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.5.0 - 12-12-2021 *\/\n.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#818a91;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#818a91;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t<!-- wp:image {\"id\":121,\"sizeSlug\":\"full\",\"linkDestination\":\"none\"} -->\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/mason-kimbarovsky-vyI4taQNowM-unsplash-1024x683-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-121\" srcset=\"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/mason-kimbarovsky-vyI4taQNowM-unsplash-1024x683-1.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/mason-kimbarovsky-vyI4taQNowM-unsplash-1024x683-1-300x200.jpg 300w, http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/mason-kimbarovsky-vyI4taQNowM-unsplash-1024x683-1-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<!-- \/wp:image -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>I get it\u2026 I think\u2026<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cNo Surprises\u201d management is intended to ensure that people aren\u2019t hiding bad news from their colleagues (let\u2019s face it, usually their boss or some other superior) so that we\u2019re not horribly surprised at the last minute that, for example, our project is 6 months late.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Boom! Instant high-functioning team! Everyone feels safe and surprises never happen\u2026. Or at least, god help you if they still do happen, because I was very clear that I don\u2019t like surprises! What don\u2019t you understand? There isn\u2019t an article on the whole internet that disagrees\u2026 Welcome to success-ville.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Well\u2026<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>I\u2019m a manager and this is surprising to me (run for cover!) but there isn\u2019t a single article that I could find in my, admittedly limited searching, that had anything but praise for this management style.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>I can tell you, from personal experience, that I think there\u2019s a whole lot wrong with this management style and I\u2019d go so far as saying I think it\u2019s a net negative approach even when given the most generous interpretation. Here\u2019s why\u2026<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><strong>Slapping a plaster on an amputation<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Why would someone in a position of management be implementing No Surprises management in the first place? The fact that this needs to be employed at all speaks volumes about the level of trust, safety and collaboration that is being experienced.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>If management are expecting their teams to hide bad news, we have a systemic disfunction. All of your time and attention needs to go into stemming the culture bleed.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>The likelihood is that your teams are hiding bad news due to either a highly competitive environment, a culture of expecting flawless foresight in a inherently unpredictable world, or through fear of being blamed. Implementing No Surprises management simply attempts to relocate the fear from the point where it\u2019s too late to change anything, to\u2026 just all the time.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Perhaps that fear plaster will stem the bleed for a short time, but how is that patient doing?<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><strong>It\u2019s unclear what it means<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Under a No Surprises management regime, am I in trouble for making a decision without my manager being involved? What level of surprise are we talking about here?<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>As with risk, surprise can be a positive as well as a negative. I suppose we\u2019d all like to hope that positive surprises are not to be banished in our new world order? Perhaps they are though?<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>I\u2019ve had the unfortunate experience of management that got very upset when I ran a short meeting proposing a new tool for linking features to tests, a problem we&#8217;d been struggling with for a while\u2026 Apparently, in this environment, my session was inside the scope of \u201csurprise\u201d and I should have spent several weeks seeding the idea with management first.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>In another role, I\u2019d found out that speaking to someone directly rather than going through my manager also fell under the scope of \u201csurprise\u201d.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>In short, micro managers love this management style\u2026 and it certainly doesn\u2019t help that there\u2019s so little material there to challenge peoples belief that it\u2019s good management protocol.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><strong>It puts people on edge<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Life is a ongoing cascade of surprises, there\u2019s no pretending that this can be reined in to zero.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Having worked in project management and development, I\u2019m well aware that surprises aren\u2019t always predictable nor blank and white. Most situations involve fluctuating risk and uncertainty and, more often than not, there won&#8217;t be a clearly defined point of &#8220;surprise&#8221;. So at what point will someone be angry? They were very clear that they don\u2019t want surprises. <\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Perhaps the fear of pointing out the surprise to our &#8216;no surprises&#8217; manager will start to make people think twice about asking for support&#8230; perhaps they might even start coving up that anything happened in the hope that they won&#8217;t have to highlight a &#8216;surprise&#8217;.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>As I alluded to earlier in this article, No Surprises management attempts to resolve the issue of low-safety culture by spreading the fear more evenly across time.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cJust don\u2019t let me experience any surprises, simple.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><strong>It smacks of insecurity<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>I has an undertone of not wanting to be out of the loop about anything. It indicates that you\u2019re afraid the team are hiding things from you, or doing things behind your back.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>I\u2019m convinced that this style of management is often used by those who feel they need to know every detail of what\u2019s going on so that, should they be asked, they don\u2019t feel foolish by having to admit they don\u2019t know what the cutting edge news is.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Unfortunately, knowing everything in great detail is both not possible and attempting to do so slows everything down. Which brings me nicely on to\u2026<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><strong>It creates bottlenecks<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Given that we don\u2019t really know the intricate detail of what our surprise-fearing management classify as burgeoning surprises worthy of their attention, we suppose that the safe bet is to inform them of everything\u2026 however insignificant it seems at the time.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>After all, any insignificant seeming decision or action could end up influencing an unacceptable surprise.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>The boss is pretty busy though, so we\u2019d better wait around and not make progress until we find a spot to update them. Or spend time composing a message to inform them rather than spending that time doing something actually productive.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p><strong>It stifles autonomy<\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>How much to I trust my team to manage their own risk and find an effective way to reach our goals?<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>If the answer is \u201cbarely at all\u201d then, sure, maybe I suddenly feel the need to make sure I\u2019m informed of all deviations from the path so that I can dictate how to get back on \u2013 but at this point I have much bigger problems.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>If I do trust my team, then my role changes from cattle prodder to guide \u2013 I have to accept that this might mean that my team make mistakes, at which point my role might temporarily become politics absorber, but the team are stronger for it.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>The fact is that autonomous teams shouldn\u2019t be bogged down with concerns about how much \u2018surprise\u2019 I can accept. In a well functioning team, the communication should be such that we don\u2019t even need to think about what might be considered surprising or not.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Another thing you might find from a well functioning team is that you\u2019re experiencing more good surprises than bad ones\u2026 Now who doesn\u2019t like surprises?<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Perhaps we could be working with short cycle iterations driven by feedback, then how much surprise can we even create?<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>In summary, No Surprises management seems like a entry from the Industrial Age playbook (this excellent concept comes from \u201cLeadership is Language\u201d by David Marquet, please read it if you haven\u2019t already) and comes with significant down sides. Perhaps it should be thrown out with the rest of that playbook.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Thanks for reading!<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ugly side of \u201cNo Surprises\u201d Management I get it\u2026 I think\u2026 \u201cNo Surprises\u201d management is intended to ensure that people aren\u2019t hiding bad news from their colleagues (let\u2019s face it, usually their boss or some other superior) so that we\u2019re not horribly surprised at the last minute that, for example, our project is 6 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":121,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170,"href":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions\/170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}