When employees disobey their bosses

Welcome to the age of insubordination. The once rare sight of an underling refusing a direct order, or threatening to do so, is increasingly common.

From the top down, defiance levels are rising. Donald Trump’s election in 2016 provoked — and continues to provoke — an outbreak of internal dissent, starting with the decision of Sally Yates, his acting attorney-general, to order government lawyers not to defend his travel ban in court, which led to her sacking.

In the United Kingdom, three cabinet ministers last week warned they would rebel rather than countenance a no-deal Brexit.

A ministerial aide, Alberto Costa, was fired after proposing an amendment to a government motion, to guarantee the rights of European Union nationals in the UK if there were no deal.

In football, Chelsea’s Kepa Arrizabalaga, the world’s most expensive goalkeeper, refused to leave the field during a recent cup final after Maurizio Sarri, his manager, ordered his substitution.

Mr Sarri’s irate reaction to this act of defiance (one with which any manager of overpaid stars will have sympathised) was broadcast worldwide.

“Gross insubordination” is a sackable offence. Yet the very need for that qualifying adjective hints at a truth: trivial acts of insubordination happen all the time.

Managers have to know when to tolerate defiance and when to push back. They need to bear in mind that sometimes insubordination signals something much more important has gone wrong. And they must recognise that overreacting can be counter-productive.

A 2007 study — “Ain’t Misbehavin: Workplace Deviance as Organizational Resistance” by Thomas Lawrence and Sandra Robinson — points out that “managerial attempts to control and limit dysfunctional workplace behaviour may increase such behaviour, rather than reduce it”. Dissent builds up by degrees:

1. Deflect.

Staff argue there is a more important commission to be carried out first or that the project in question is someone else’s responsibility.

2. Disregard or delay. By ignoring an order, the recipient passively hands the problem back to the team leader. (This is, of course, how bad managers deal with pestering requests from staff.)

3. Divert. Employees go round or over their boss for a second opinion. It is hard for managers to argue with their superiors without becoming guilty of insubordination themselves.

4. Disrupt. Staff misbehave or work to rule. Insubordination starts to become a collective rather than an individual response. Fulfilling only contractual obligations is highly effective in office-based organisations that rely on goodwill.

5. Demonstrate. Employees turn to outright protest, which, unchecked, may turn to mutiny. What explains the current upsurge in dissent?

In United States and UK politics, it reflects a sense among politicians and officials that a failure to resist now may trigger irreversible consequences.

As Mr Costa, the UK politician, said last week about his stand: “I don’t give a stuff about being a junior aide: it’s about the rights of 5 million people.”

In business, a shift in the demand for certain skills has combined with a flattening of hierarchy and a loosening of traditional controls, particularly in white-collar organisations. Those same organisations are turning managers into coaches and pushing decision-making responsibility out to team members, who will inevitably exercise their right to dissent if they disagree with policy and strategy.

Google staff walked out last year to protest against the company’s handling of alleged sexual misconduct. Some Microsoft employees are now complaining about a contract to supply augmented reality headsets to the US Army.

Both Googlers and Microsofties are using the power, and relative impunity, granted by their own relative scarcity as talented engineers. Managers in their turn need to find new ways to absorb and respond to dissent.

Traditionally, they have done so through feedback channels, backed by the threat of sanctions for more extreme insubordination.

Using the suggestion box to soak up concerns, though, only puts off confrontation. It may mute legitimate concerns. On the other hand, reacting with force to minor “deviance”, as the academics call it, can provoke greater outrage.

Arrizabalaga was rightly punished for his petulant resistance. The club docked him a week’s wages. Mr Sarri dropped him from the next match. But the spat made clear his manager and club need the keeper more than he needs them. Similarly, the relationship between workplace power and deviance is “an interlocking system”, according to the 2007 study, in which everyone is implicated. As more power moves from coaches to players, expect that system to come under greater strain. THE FINANCIAL TIMES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Andrew Hill is the Financial Times' management editor.