Daily Lesson from Life 22 February 2009

"Man fed manure in police initiation Feb 21, 2009 Reuter

A police recruit in Columbia is handcuffed naked and fed manure in an initiation rite carried out by his colleagues."

A short quote by surely a shocking one. Or is it?

Well, the strange initiation rite practiced by many 'macho' organizations around the world never really shocked anyone anymore these days. The incomprehensible logic and rationale people offered like: in order to instill team spirit and belonging to a group, we need to humiliate the person with unimaginable act. e.g. like in this case, feeding the new 'member' manure! e.g. like in other gang initiation of 'gang girl' - sex with other male gang members! e.g. water torture or being slapped and kicked around like in an exposed Russian (supposedly Russian anyway) military camp! etc...

Well it is truly great to have the new recruit appreciate the value of being in the 'group' or 'team' or 'company', there are many other ways to achieve the same purpose. In fact, much better way!

Lessons for me are:

1. as leaders, there is NO need to humiliate anyone in order for him or her to pledge allegiance willingly as long as the common objectives are communicated, shared, discussed and aligned with the new member. Once he or she embraced the common objectives, he or she will be committed to the causes and NOT just being in compliance to the causes!;

2. there is no need to be 'macho' in initiation rite. Any initiation is to quickly introduce the new member to the group's norm, common purposes, who is who and who do what and when, how to do things, and what are the macro environment like. It is to help the new member quickly get on board and be closer to the standard of understanding and level of performance with the existing members!;

3. as leaders, we must remember that: compliance = doing the right things when someone is watching; while commitment = doing the right things when NO ONE is watching. We want commitment from our new members and NOT mere compliance as we CANNOT be watching everyone ALL the time!!

May I wish that all leaders of man and woman realized that any initiation rite must be done to help the new members get commitment and not compliance!! So, please stop humiliating them. I do not recall being humiliated as a motivator for me when I join any NEW GROUP, Team or company!!