Frailty Enablers and Guardrails

Frailty enablers are those factors that increase the tendency to move from strength to frailty: from pride to hubris or from ego to opportunism. Guardrails are practices and policies that HR can develop to keep these tendencies within manageable limits.

Enablers

Many situational factors can enable the development of hubris. Chief among them are excessive praise and the absence of criticism. Officers who have been successful for a time can easily find themselves surrounded by yes-men, with no one who dares to confront them. In the absence of checks to his or her power, who could reliably withstand the temptations a situation like this can produce?

Opportunism, feeds on at least four enablers: excessive pay, entitlements, bonuses, and perquisites. For example, a CEO's salary is usually based on the size of the company: the larger the company, the greater the justification for a larger salary. This consideration can easily develop into opportunistic plans to expand the company in the interests, not of any legitimate strategic goal, but simply of augmenting personal rewards. Even when the market indicates that a given merger isn't an advisable move, the opportunity to secure a pay raise can cloud a CEO's vision and take the place of sound business judgment--to the point even of taking the place of social responsibility and respect for the law.

HR needs to manage these enablers in two ways: by minimizing the possibility of their emergence, and by directly advising the individuals whose positions make them susceptible to them.

Hubris

* Past Successes

* Yes-men/checked criticisms

* The executive fan club

Opportunism

* Excessive pay entitlements

o Cash/Bonuses

o Perks

In every strategic situation, it is essential to ask who the major players are, to what extent the frailties of hubris or opportunism might influence their decisions, and how the presence of hubris or opportunism might interfere with the functioning of relevant HR personnel. Take the time to examine how the presence of these two frailties might affect your ability to manage strategy formation.

Guardrails

How does HR provide guardrails in the workplace? Part of the answer is through coaching: identifying weaknesses and trying to coach people. Another approach is to use what some people refer to as a "foil," somebody who's willing to stand up to one or more of the executives and tell them when they're wrong--to some extent, to try to keep them humble.

Another approach is to try and ensure that pay, perquisites, and all of those things don't begin