The Fish Laws: When Yes Means No
In times of war, fishing boats could become warships. So, to build up the fishing fleet and, therefore, the navy, the Fish Laws were introduced.
Everyone had to eat fish on Fridays. Fish was expensive, so some people decided they would rather eat something else. Unfortunately, refusing to eat fish was not encouraged. If someone reported you, you could face a horrible punishment. Your toenails might be pulled out. Or something equally unpleasant.
Which is how people learnt to say Yes when they were thinking No. They nodded their heads in agreement while thinking this was the most stupid idea ever.
Something they still do today in offices across the land. And not just on Fridays.
Thankfully, modern managers have stopped pulling out people's toenails when they disagree with them. Instead, we have found more sophisticated ways of getting people to say yes. We have meetings, policies, targets, surveys and forms. And, of course, there is the famous question: “Any questions?”
There is usually silence. Everyone nods. Someone says, “Sounds good.” The meeting ends. Five minutes later, someone is in the corridor saying, “What a stupid idea.”
The punishments have changed. The behaviour hasn't.
We have replaced physical punishment with organisational pressure. The result can be the same: compliance without commitment.
Compliance means, “I will do it because I have to.” Commitment means, “I will do it because I believe it is the right thing to do.”
Compliance is relatively easy to achieve. Give people a rule. Give them a target. Monitor what they do. Tell them what happens if they don't do it. You can get people to complete the form, attend the training and follow the new process.
But you cannot make them care.
You cannot make someone believe that a pointless form is a good idea. You cannot make someone believe that training will make them better at their job. And you cannot create commitment simply by putting the word “commitment” into the organisation's values.
Yet employee engagement has become something of a holy grail. We measure it, survey it and give it a score. We hold focus groups and away days. We discuss the results. Sometimes we even provide free pizza.
But perhaps we have become better at measuring engagement than creating it.
A workforce can be highly engaged on paper and deeply disengaged in the meeting room. People learn what answers are expected. They learn what happens when they challenge the boss. They learn that honesty can be risky.
So they nod, agree and comply. Then they go back to doing what they were doing before.
The employee who keeps asking awkward questions may actually be more committed. The person who says, “This isn't going to work,” may be trying to stop the organisation making a costly mistake. The person who challenges the boss may care more about getting things right than the person who agrees with everything the boss says.
That does not mean every disagreement is a sign of commitment. Some people simply enjoy disagreeing. But commitment gives people a reason to care enough to challenge.
This gives managers a simple test: what happens when someone says no?
If people can disagree without being punished, ignored or labelled as difficult, you have a chance of creating commitment. If saying no damages someone's career, people will quickly learn to say yes.
A healthy organisation should not have everyone agreeing all the time. It should have people who care enough to question, challenge and suggest something better.
Perhaps the real sign of engagement is not how often people say yes. It is whether they feel able to say no.
The people forced to eat fish on Friday eventually became very good at saying the right thing while thinking something completely different. Modern organisations can do the same.
Perhaps the real test of engagement is not whether people will eat the fish. It is whether they feel free to tell you they don't like fish.
So, if your employees never say no, have you really created an engaged organisation — or have you simply become very good at getting people to comply?
