SITTING DUCKS?
According to Bart Perkins ofComputerworld, "Every organization has some 'ducks.' Ducks are employees who have a detrimental effect on productivity. Their work is consistently substandard, they rarely meet deadlines, and their skills are out of date. They hate change, resist taking responsibility and blame their failures on their co-workers. They constantly complain about their projects, their team-mates, their workloads, and their managers. They stifle innovation by shooting down new proposals, claiming that changes 'just can"t be done.'"
A "duck" can be brought into an organization in any number of ways. They can be hired in, or they can be acquired through mergers or acquisitions. It would make sense to limit the number of ducks in an organization by firing them, helping them gain new skills, by providing counseling, or by transferring them to a job that better meets their skills and experience.
Unfortunately, many ducks are not interested in change, and keeping them around can demotivate other employees. For example, high performers may become demoralized if their pay raises are only slightly higher than a nonperformer. Too often organizational policies or culture makes it difficult to get rid of the ducks.
A large organization hired a CIO with a mandate to improve IT services across the business units. He soon learned that there were many ducks among his staff. He needed to change the IT unit, but corporate policy made it difficult just to fire these nonperformers. With the knowledge and understanding of the executive team, the CIO created a "duck pond" that was a special, low priority project that included all of the nonperforming employees. Once the ducks were herded together, the project was cancelled and the nonperforming employees were let go.
- Some may argue that an ineffective IT organization could be outsourced, so sacrificing the ducks to save the rest of the IT function was best for the better performing employees. Do you agree?
- Was the action of the CIO ethical?