Disruptive Do-Gooders

 

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”                                                 -- C. S. Lewis[i]

As we wrap up the hazards involved in disruptive influences (ProjectManagement.com’s October theme), I want to return to the categories I like to use to bin such hazards. They originate in one or more of the following areas:

• Internal to the project,
• External to the project but internal to the organization, and
• External to the organization.

It’s this last category I want to address this week, since it’s both the one that the PM tends to have the least control over, but the one that contains a rather easy-to-avoid difficulty: ceding influence to those who do not have direct involvement in the project nor the organization.

I can’t help but roll my eyes whenever I hear about an organization that has elected to cease manufacturing operations in or purchasing items from countries where the workers are “forced” to work in “sweatshops,” or conditions that most workers in the industrialized world would find objectionable, if not deplorable. As Thomas Sowell has pointed out in his excellent book Basic Economics[ii], when a given manufacturer announces an intent to set up business in one of the poorer countries, it is not at all unusual for people hoping to get a job with the new plant to show up days prior to the actual hiring period. They willingly do so – no one is “forcing” them to do anything. The basic facts are that there are risks inherent in any project or manufacturing initiative, and the entrepreneurs who are doing so are making decisions intended to maximize their chances of running (or expanding) a successful project. Poorer countries are attractive to start-ups because the labor rate is usually lower than in more developed nations. The same nations are unattractive because of their governments’ ability to provide an effective constable force to protect the company’s assets can be uneven, not to mention the chances of an unstable government changing tax rates unexpectedly, or even nationalizing the new plant altogether.

All of these factors, and more, go into the decision of starting business operations in nations perceived as harboring or tolerating “sweat shops.” But the actual people who are desperate for work don’t care about third party tut-tutting about their conditions of employment. Often these positions are critical to them in order to get ahead personally or on behalf of their families. For a third party, who is not directly engaged in either the labor supply nor the hoped-for output, to interfere and act as a disruptive influence over this kind of business transaction strikes me as not only defeating the very purpose – advancing the living standards in poorer countries – they claim to advance, it’s a hazard to the Project Managers. How should this disruptive influence be countered?

First, it must be recognized, the earlier in the cycle, the better. The PM who is assigned to the scope of building the facility, or delivering the expected output, would be well-served to engage in some public relations efforts. The narrative that the disruptive do-gooders are attempting to hang around your neck is one of management exploitation of helpless labor, and they want to use that to push the conclusion that your project is somehow lacking in moral authority. This, in turn, springs from the dopey notion that legal, freely entered-in-to business transactions are either morally correct, or immoral. Actually, such transactions are morally neutral, including those characterized as “price gouging.” As long as neither party is being coerced into entering into a legal transaction – a basic ground rule for valid contracts – then parties not involved in the transaction truly have no grounds for objecting. But that doesn’t stop them from trying, and they are likely not going to experience some kind of epiphany that would enlighten them to their folly.

Keep in mind that this particular type of potential disruptors will almost never have any direct link into the project, neither from its scope completion side, nor from its resource utilization aspect. Much of the disruptive power they wield has been ceded them under the rubric of “engaging stakeholders.” Third party do-gooders suffer nothing for championing a wrong-headed approach. This, by itself, should render anything these stakeholders assert as suspect at best, completely irrelevant at worst.

A practical preventive measure would be to not grant third-party, nothing-to-lose-if-I'm-wrong entities any decision-making authority (or even influence) over the strategic direction for the project.

Also, the savvy PM will be wary of admonishments to “engage all stakeholders.” In my view, the only stakeholders who should be engaged are those who have direct involvement in either the project’s scope, or the resources pursuing said scope. Everyone else is suspect.

So, that’s the litmus test: do the stakeholders have a direct link to the project, AND are in a position to endure losses if the positions they advocate are wrong? Everybody else should read more Sowell and Lewis.

[i] Retrieved from https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/19967-of-all-tyrannies-a-tyranny-sincerely-exercised-for-the-good on October 27, 2018, 19:02 MDT

[ii] Sowell, Thomas, Basic Economics, A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, Fifth Edition, Basic Books, 2015.