by Raymond DeStephen

The legendary quality improvement consultant W. Edwards Deming, with his characteristic gift for the understatement, called the system by which merit in the workplace is rewarded, "the most powerful inhibitor to quality and productivity in the Western world." He goes on to say that it "nourishes short-term performance, annihilates long-term planning, builds fear, demolishes teamwork, nourishes rivalry...leaves people bitter." But perhaps the coup de grace for lost quality and productivity in the work place is when we set up a competition between ourselves.

Management talks about team work, unity, cohesion, and working together to give the client the best possible result, then destroys it with reward systems that pit individuals or groups of individuals (offices, departments) against one another. The surest way to destroy teamwork, and therefore organizational excellence, is to make people compete. Notwithstanding all of the internal difficulties this causes, perhaps the most devastating result is that clients are not well served. They often do not get our best effort, the most appropriate team for the assignment, or the service they should have. Who can afford to do that when resources must be hoarded as necessary to produce profit for your group?

We set up competitions in many ways, beginning with recognition programs and contests that pit individuals against each other. For each person who wins, there are many who carry with them the awareness of having lost. The more these awards are publicized by memos, newsletters, bulletin boards, the more detrimental their impact. Contests, rankings and competitions for limited incentives cause each employee to see every colleague as an obstacle to her own success instead of as a fellow collaborator.

I am reminded of our company's Exceptional Service Award Program of many years ago, selected by the CEO himself after candidates were recommended from each office by the branch manager. Having myself won one of these prestigious awards, I proudly displayed the plaque on my wall. As years passed, I watched as it became clear that future "winners" were selected based on whether the award had previously been given to someone from the same office. I felt that the meaning of my plaque had been devalued, but I finally realized the folly of it all when one year a "double winner" was announced - the Smith twins. After all, how could one twin be so exceptional, and not the other? I now have a blank wall.

But the real devastation comes when we compete for bonus dollars. This is where our bonus program is set up as a giant competition with one office against another for a bigger cut of the bonus pool in a "make it - take it" fashion. As the leader of an office whose goal is to make the biggest profit possible, there is no benefit in sharing equipment or personnel with another office, or getting the best team from across the company when less qualified people from your office can do all the work. Why go overboard with providing professional development, or deal with safety and skills training, when that just hurts your department's bottom line?

I have seen the devastation within my own firm, regrettably twice, once in 1991 and again just recently, when we went to a competitive bonus program, with bonus dollars dependent upon how much the office makes (relative to other offices, of course). Apparently enough time elapsed since our first venture into competitive bonuses, that we forgot how demoralizing it was. In both cases these programs only lasted two years. Why? Infighting, bickering, lack of cooperation, bunker mentality and silo building were the result.

Instead of competing with yourselves, might I suggest taking on your real competitors? How much more equipped might you be to do that if your entire company were working as one, reinforcing one another, helping one another, sacrificing for one another - relentlessly, tirelessly, without worry of getting cut out of bonus dollars. I do suspect you would be a force to be reckoned with.