“Around here, we keep half the people ignorant so they aren’t prejudiced, and half the people prejudiced so they aren’t ignorant.” — Dr. Jay Shulman, c.1980 First, consider the following case study background: Because people don’t like to be the bearer of bad news, and are sometimes afraid that their management may “kill the messenger”, employees are often very reluctant to bring unwelcome but critically important project status information to their management. (This is sometimes known as the “mum effect.”) Therefore, it is common that important project status information does not make it to the level of management that can take corrective action to do something about it. In fact, it is typical that the farther up the hierarchy a manager is, the less information he or she will have about the project. Unfortunately, this sometimes means that those who have the authority to change things, are the very people who do not know the necessity of the change and/or who do not have sufficient information to enable an appropriate change. Whistle blowing (see below) is an extreme case of bearing the bad news up the hierarchy. Sadly, whistle blowing can be dangerous to one’s own career. Unfortunately, whistle blowing in some organizations is considered illegitimate behavior bordering on insubordination. Even when people blow the whistle, management can ignore it (sometimes known as the “deaf effect”), essentially saying “don’t give me bad news that I don’t want to hear.” All this is counterproductive to projects, whose success d
epends on sound decisions and timely corrections of deviance from plan. For instance, issues that are not elevated to the proper decision-maker before they mature into full-blown problems, become a risk to the success of the entire project. If the decision-maker is kept in the dark, or refuses to make a decision, or punishes the bearer of bad news, then he or she will no longer be in a position to take timely corrective action to keep the project on track to success. Then consider these informal definitions so that we know we’re talking about the same thing: Now answer the following questions: a) What type of organizational culture might inhibit whistle blowing? Why? b) What should a project manager do to encourage his project team’s willingness to report project problems? c) How can a project manager effectively report project problems to the sponsor, stakeholders, and senior management? What techniques might the PM use? If you have worked for an organization that had internal auditors, Inspectors General (IGs), or other internal inspectors then skip to Part E, below. If you worked for such an organization, then answer Part D: d) If you worked for an organization that had internal auditors, IGs, or inspectors, were they effective? Were they welcome? What, in your experience, was done well and what was done poorly with such internal auditors and inspectors? e) If you have worked for an organization that had internal auditors, inspectors, or IGs, do you think it would be beneficial, detrimental, or problematic? Why?