Whistle Blowers, Good Or Bad?

Whistle blowers are not very much fun to have on your team.  They seem to be wired to hunt and search for issues to unearth.  They are usually the ones who are most prone to hit the beehive with a stick to see what happens.  They are wired to come to the party looking for trouble.  I have played that role more than once in my life and I can assure you that it is not a popular role to play.  Since 1995 I have been hired four times in four different organizations to help them repair their broken business models.  Although my main role was never to become a whistle blower, my job of repair usually ended up taking those kinds of steps.  Many times I needed to call a whoa to some activities that had become part of the accepted bad habits those organizations performed.  Blowing the whistle to identify the fouls eventually became one of my most important duties to perform.  It is a very unpopular position to hold.  I speak from a position of knowledge on this one.

As much as it is unpopular to perform, sometimes blowing the whistle is a critical step towards beginning the repair process.  An alcoholic will never begin the repair steps to quit drinking until they at first blow the whistle on themselves to admit they have a drinking problem.  The beehive will need to be slapped with a pretty strong stick to begin that process.  It will not be popular and it will not feel good.  It takes a certain amount of courage to blow the whistle on some wrong things being done.  The whistle blowers know they are always at risk with their personal outcomes if they decide to blow the whistle on some wrongs being performed.  It is risky business.  For sure, it is unpopular work.  Popularity does not come from disturbing the beehive that is hanging next to a large group on a picnic.  The resulting activities will easily disturb everyone in attendance.  To blow or not to blow becomes the concern for those who discover some wrongs that are being done and also being suppressed.  The one with the stick in hand will likely take the blame for the disturbance the bees produce.

Are you prone to be a whistle blower?  Are you wired to search out the wrongs and try to make them right?

Those are very serious considerations that leaders must learn how to manage.  Organizations have a certain level of human dynamics that require a leader to learn how to manage these kinds of things.  These dynamics can show up and help to destroy a good working pattern.  They can disturb the process for good production.  The human factor is a large part of the engine movement to the pattern a business uses to produce its results.  Those human factors often times govern how the business engine runs its components to the end results it eventually delivers.  Success or failure depends largely upon how those human dynamics are permitted to work.  Success of a business pattern is often times found in the development ways of the human dynamics.  The people employed are often times the controllers of the eventual outcomes a business model produces.  Success can hinge on how well those people generate the good dynamics needed to deliver what that business should produce.  Relationships matter.

When a business leader begins to ignore the signals and nuances of the relationships that weave through the business model that leader is developing a contemporary leadership problem.  To ignore the relationships is to set fire to one of the most human desires people bring to the table.  We are people first, workers second.  To get that reality turned around is to work the patterns of leadership backwards.  A business leader who mixes these two key elements up is a business leader too focused on the money production of the model.  Dealing properly with the relationships that transpire during the business operations is a major part of how a good leader directs the model.  Success often times comes from how well the leader handles the human dynamics that occur at work.  That part of the business model is a large part of the fabric that weaves out the success patterns.  Humans matter.  When they feel they do not matter any more, they begin to search out reasons and situations to prove how right they are.  Whistle blowing begins.

I am watching a close neighbor couple go through some stuff in their lives.  I want so badly to step in and offer them some advice.  I see some things that they do not see.  Some of those things they are doing are going to come back to bite them in the near future, if they have not already begun that process.  Some of the routine symptoms of a marriage going bad have begun to surface.  My wife and I see them happening and have made comments to ourselves about the danger those things may produce.  People can get lost about how they treat each other.  People do not always recognize when they criticize incorrectly or demean the efforts of the person they are speaking with.  This can happen when people lose sight of the ways to protect good relationships.  I have seen this pattern take over a complete set of good employees in a large business model.  The human dynamics can get completely strung out of control.

Once this begins to happen it must be managed properly.  A business leader who has not developed the proper skills to manage this kind of stuff is a business manager who is afraid to step up to the plate and be accountable.  When my neighbor comes over to speak to me, I drop subtle hints to him to capture his attention about a few things he is missing in the relationship wars he is protecting.  I am not his manager nor his counselor, but if I was, and they were a part of a business model I was leading, trust me...I would be smack dab in the middle of the foolishness they are practicing.  Relationships matter.  They govern a large part of how a business model succeeds.  I would pull out the whistle and start blowing it when it warranted a whistle blow.  Leaders do wear a black and white stripe shirt.  They are also the referee.  One thing I know about good leadership, the fans will express some dissatisfaction for a bad call when the whistle is blown incorrectly.  That black and white stripe shirt will turn red and white on the back side and the stripes will look like a circle.  The leader will then become the target.  Managing relationship challenges is risky business.  Any leader who ignores this truth is a leader headed for an unwanted crash.

However, if the leader does not intercept a brewing human relationship problem on the deck of their business model ship they will soon find out they have employed some other whistle blowers to do that trick for them.  Now the human challenge has grown to include others.  Now the focus on productivity is compromised.  The whistle blowing that begins can grow up and become a "one-ups-man-ship" game.  Now the people involved begin to look for trouble to report.  The bee hive has been struck with the stick of disturbance.  Agitation has set in and stuff begins to get out of control.  I see this very same thing happening to our neighbors who are having some marital issues.  Humans develop some interesting views.  They do interesting things to protect or expose how they feel about those views.  The controls we manage when these kinds of things occur will often times determine how productive our model functions in the waves of churning relationships that become part of how people work.  Relationships matter.  Whistle blowers will be there to remind a leader how much they matter.

I have employed hundreds and hundreds of employees in my career and I can think of many of them that were routine whistle blowers.  Some of them I appreciated while others I replaced.  I think it mattered most to me what kind of motives they used to drive how they blew the whistle.  If the whistle was used to correct a wrong that was hurting the production of the whole team, I appreciated that process.  Yet when the whistle was blown to advance themselves, I was less likely to find that kind of action worthwhile to support.  Strangely enough, I like whistle blowers.  They can become the eyes I cannot see.  I like to manage my group dynamics in a more productive fashion and I make that process very real.  My reward of attention supports productivity well before it favors friendships and personality preferences.  This kind of approach to business leadership helps keep the human dynamics away from the unwanted path of non-productive cycles.  Learn how to respect the whistle blowers fashions but never permit those fashions to take over control.  There is a fine line to managing the relationships of people properly.  The success a business model will produce depends greatly upon how well that leader manages the relationships that exist.

Get rid of favorites, manage what you do not see well and learn the art of controlling who blows what whistle for what reasons.  Good or bad, whistle blowing will eventually come to the surface of your business model.  Respect the damage it can do and make sure you do not set it on fire unnecessarily.  I have seen how the neighbors have made that mistake and they are not helping their troubled ways when that happens.  Put away the matches and learn how to deal with the whistle blowing ways.  Become a business leader who can turn bad news into good news.  Manage the relationships better.  Permit whistle blowing only if the productivity improves with your proper leadership ways.  Learn the art of dovetailing relationships next to productivity.  It can be done.  A good leader will make that kind of thing happen often.  I like the whistles, even when they surprise me.  Whistle blowing information can be useful stuff if you do not permit it to consume you.

Until next time...