"Removing Permission To Think" Has This Occurred With Your Job?

Late last year DH and I were listening to the BBC (radio) interview a corporate psychologist who was concerned about the growing trend within orginisations to remove the discretion or "permission to think" from all but the most senior personnel. He cited the Medical, Retail, Finance industries as examples of orgs that do this, amongst others. He said that 20 years ago workers still had a fair degree of discretion and control over how they did their job. Nowdays that's been taken away resulting in high stress and low morale amongst workers.

We have recently experienced this as DH resigned from his last role with a bank. He had been a banker for over 20 years and saw many changes but the worst was the removal of the choice in how he did his job and micro-managing. Once upon a time, as a manager, he had a lending discretion; he would meet with a person who wanted a loan, analyse their situation and decide (within limits) whether they could have a loan. Nowadays not only has that stopped but he has been told he has to read from a script "Good afternoon, my name is.... and would you like fries with that?" Well, virtually. He can't even choose to face a customer during a home loan interview anymore... he has to face the computer screen and fill out the online forms while talking to the customer to save time.... oh and every 10 minutes must be accounted for and he has no control over his diary. Total removal of permission to think has driven my DH into depression and anxiety to the point that he can no longer work in the finance industry.

Has your industry experienced this phenomenom? Here is the place to vent.

Yes, pretty similar to your DH. All my admin/office hours to be accounted for, but we still have free thought and permission to dream up new ideas and put them into action. But slowly I am seeing the changes. I work for a community organization as a aged and disability program manager.

This is why I couldn't stay in retail - the scripting!

And why we were rejected for a mortgage application: the mortgage advisor and the manager said that they would lend to us, would lend more than the computer said (which we didn't need), but as "computer said no" they had to go with it (because I didn't have 3 months' worth of payslips).

DH is very dissatisfied with all the computer stuff at work - they don't want a thinking engineer, they want a monkey who can push buttons. And it annoys him.

It's also why I'm now a bit dissatisfied with work: I need to write my own scripts and stick to them. I can't go off on a tangent. I plan them as loosly as possible because I hate having to tell people their questions are off-script so I won't answer them.

I'm a chemistry teacher who has included the Napoleanic wars, science-fiction films and religious festivities in recent classes (albeit briefly when no-one was watching). I don't get how science can be taught in isolation and to a script without killing enthusiasm for the subject.

Then we wonder why countries whose industry leaders do think do better than we do in the world market.

Dh's work is going through this now, and it is sending everyone there batty!

Theres no trust in staff, theres no responsility unless the bosses say they are responsible (even when they shouldnt be).

I had to laugh, a couple of months ago it was decreed that the GM had to be present at every stocktake for every department.

Dh is in hospitality, he and his boss have always been responsible for the menu (for instance), but now they are told what they are to prepare, how, and everything else.

Its sad how things have changed over the years. Older generations wonder why people dont stay in the one job, one profession all their working lives. But when there is no moral, no trust, nothing to keep people why would you stay?

I have had a few different retail jobs and the only one where i felt scripted was in a footwear outlet. We had to greet a customer within 30 secs we had questions we had to ask every customer, towards the end i felt like a computer. I left that job and have mine now. When i first started we had our scripted things we had to say but now i do what i want. I ask all the appropriate questions when necessary and not at each and every customer and my boss is happy with my performance. Obviously if a customer is paying with credit they don't want cash out, if they have a green bag they more than likely don't want a box/paper bag and asking each and every customer if they wanted to recharge their phones soon had us being abused and told off as if they wanted phone credit they would ask themselves! :rolleyes:

i think anyone in a call centre will be exposed to this - i left my previous job because it got beyond ridiculous. if you didn't work your sales pitch in a certain way, you failed the call (quality wise). you could get all the information in the call, in a way that was appropriate for the customer, but if you didn't word it the way they wanted you to word it, you failed. i had the official training on a thurs/fri - by friday night i had told DH i was leaving and getting a new job. took less than 8 weeks for me to get the job i now have

in my current role, there is a degree of scripting - but you still have a fair degree of freedom. i guess if you weren't meeting other requirements of the role, they may get a bit more picky about the scripting, but as it stands at the moment i don't notice it at all.

we do have very VERY strict guidelines in regards to time management. average handling time, percentage of time dealing direct with customers vs time doing work after the calls - and the biggest one is how long we are on breaks etc. they are timed to the second. a LOT of people find this ridiculous and frustrating, but having done some training in the setting up and running of a call centre, i know how much this can make a difference. at the moment, we are flat out. constantly people waiting for help. so any time we're not dealing with customers is time that isn't well spent. our average handling time for customers is about 8 minutes - if we're 30 seconds late back from each of our breaks (we have 2*15min, lunch, and five minute breaks every hour) each person would deal with, on average, one less customer a day. in our centre alone that's around 250 customers that don't get answered. australia wide, with 25 call centres, that's a huge number of people not helped each day.... so yes, it seems to be serious overkill when you're looking at it, but when you get the why of it, it makes sense

and meh i'm not too phased - i get paid to do a job, i do it. obviously not everyone feels like that - but i think my own background in this sort of field means i'm much less antsy about it all. it is what it is kwim?

Bath I showed DH and he replied to you but I lost his post :(

Yes, I have been through it. I was even promoted to supervisor of 4 staff, and still didn't get to think for them or myself.. Just got to cop the flak if they did something wrong.. It came under the admin/clerks banner, however my 'controllin' boss expected things to be done the same way by all staff (I am talking ticking vs putting a dash when cross referencing sheets, or even certain colour highlighters).. It was a joke. The amount of times I stood up and said that my staff are people, not robots, was unbelievable.

Mine was mainly cause I had a boss who was a control freak. Always wanted to check emails before sending.. And even now I no longer work for that company, I have lots of experience in my industry, and I still have to pull myself up from asking permission to do something that is a normal part of my day.. I know the industry well enough to know what rules to bend, but still didn't dare do it when it would have saved time and customer frustration.

Hmmm, sort of.

I worked in change communications where it was my job to communicate changes to the workforce. After much navel-gazing, I've decided it doesn't suit me because often, I didn't think the changes were good ones but in a large organisation questioning those changes is not welcomed. I've seen too many bad decisions being made because often senior management like to be seen to be 'doing' something regardless of whether the changes are wise or not.

Now I'm planning a career change into public policy where I can set the agenda (more) rather than implement changes others have decided upon, if that makes sense.

I would think that in a lot of jobs permission to think was never granted in the first place. There's not much call for thought in an assembly line.
We own our own business so we lack permission not to think and TBH there are days when being a drone would be a welcome change. I'm pretty sure DH would rather not be dealing with an angry client right now who has been ****ed off by one of our managers thinking something stupid.

Olive:thanks for trying... I've also lost a post tonight... not sure why... i think I've forgotten the ropes a bit! LOL

DMB: Yes, DH also had a crazy woman control freak as his last boss as well. She bullied him something terrible but he was too polite to swear back at her. All he wanted to do was help his customers but he was told: "Don't worry about the F***ing customers, YOU worry about MY reputation because this is MY bank and MY town" And he was meant to do deals even if it wasn't in the customers best interests... can the couplé's 98yo mother guarantee the loan... give ém the money! Um, no, you don't do that! Sometimes it's not right to put people into that position... haven't you learnt anything from the GFC???

I also worry how this affects women in labour in a hospital environment. Medical staff probably have to follow quite a strict protocol and ignore their personal thoughts on things... which is why I was told to "hurry up we need this birthing suite, we're really busy todäy" ie I was labouring too slowly according to their script.

yes. this is happening in universities as well.

For example, if supervising PhD students, staff no longer have the opportunity to properly mentor their students. They (the students) perform in front of a panel. This panel can be comprised of a minimum of 2 people, but I have seen and been subjected to a university requring 5 :o. basically this is to ensure that 'no crazy lefties' get hold of the students :rofl:

Also, there is the policy where every meeting must be undertaken with the door open. Although it is guised as an anti-sexual harrasment measure, it is, in reality about control and social behaviour modelling. From what i have experienced and witnessed it has resulted in an acute drop in debate and discussion of ideas as all meetings are now open to public ears and eyes and every word is heard from all passer bys. not healthy when universities are, by nature, a place for thought generation.

I am a nurse and this is happening more and more, often to the patients detriment and is squandering resources. We now have 'tools' to assess everything they are forms where everything is scored. The score then dictates patient management and is so impersonal it often fails to identify patients at risk and wrongly identifies patients that aren't clinically at risk. This means that a patient who has gone outside had a smoke then walked up the stairs would qualify for an emergency call due to high blood pressure and heart rate especially if there is a junior nurse caring for the patient who may not consider the background and just look at the numbers.

In health it is a dangerous practice that is going to significantly reduce the skill level in the workforce and put people's lives at risk. Having Protocols and guidelines are absolutely necessary but so is allowing educated experienced clinicians to use their own judgement based on their skills and knowledge. When I was learning health was meant to be patient centers and tailored to the individuals needs, these one size fits all tools are a step away from that belief.

Sorry for the rant but as an experienced nurse I have seen these 'tools' fail and have seen that it is also taking away an individuals ability to think and problem solve.

I'm in the process of changing careers (well, when I go back to work after mat leave) because of this problem. Call centres are extremely regulated to begin with, which like BG we learn to deal with and understand the reasoning. But when they add to that having to use particular wordings (other than regulatory scripts) for calls or say certain "buzz phrases" a certain number of times within the call, it becomes too much.

I went from a role that wasn't base call centre but part of a specialised professional team to being treated like a bunch of juveniles incapable of thinking for ourselves. Within the space of 12 months, we've seen a complete team change-over as we all began seeking other roles either within the organisation or external. And management still haven't clicked that they've lost the benefit of years of experience in the industry as we've left.

Yep, BG my DH works for the same CC as you and has been wanting to get out for a while now. I read your post nodding at every detail cause its the same as what he has told me :P

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I worked in frontline banking as an assistant manager for about 3 years and experienced exactly what your hubby did. It's just unbelievable the amount of pressure and stress that is placed on people in those roles. I'm out of frontline now but still in banking doing complaint management. In this role I have a fairly large amount of autonomy in the decisions that I make, but this is because I have an amazing GM who believes in and fights for his staff.

We really do seem to be working on training independent thought out of people from day one, aren't we? Even the GP's aren't allowed to decide for themselves anymore whether or not they're going to collaborate with a midwife - they're being bullied by the main Obs in their regions, who are responding to pressure from AMA. Even if they AGREE that midwives are the people qualified to help women birth in their homes, they seem to have no real discretion as to whether they'll collaborate or not for fear of professional backlash.
Then, kids are supposed to just obey and comply or they'll be labelled with something - even in my psych text book, before they even get to the diagnoses for ADHD they talk about kids who are non-compliant, in a general sense...what? The point of having kids and measuring the success of such is to gauge if they're 'compliant'? So that they learn to comply with anyone who has any semblance of power over them? Hmm, that sounds safe and adaptive...not! Our world is taking this for granted, that kids must comply, and teenagers have to comply and then, you comply from there on in or you get passed over for jobs for thinking too much and challenging the status quo.
I think I'm starting to look into the social welfare sector, for when I finally look for work after graduating, and I really hope to have some independence of thought there. If not, I may have to succumb to lifelong nagging and take to writing, remaining poor!

We really do seem to be working on training independent thought out of people from day one, aren't we? Even the GP's aren't allowed to decide for themselves anymore whether or not they're going to collaborate with a midwife - they're being bullied by the main Obs in their regions, who are responding to pressure from AMA. Even if they AGREE that midwives are the people qualified to help women birth in their homes, they seem to have no real discretion as to whether they'll collaborate or not for fear of professional backlash.
Then, kids are supposed to just obey and comply or they'll be labelled with something - even in my psych text book, before they even get to the diagnoses for ADHD they talk about kids who are non-compliant, in a general sense...what? The point of having kids and measuring the success of such is to gauge if they're 'compliant'? So that they learn to comply with anyone who has any semblance of power over them? Hmm, that sounds safe and adaptive...not! Our world is taking this for granted, that kids must comply, and teenagers have to comply and then, you comply from there on in or you get passed over for jobs for thinking too much and challenging the status quo.
I think I'm starting to look into the social welfare sector, for when I finally look for work after graduating, and I really hope to have some independence of thought there. If not, I may have to succumb to lifelong nagging and take to writing, remaining poor!

Teaching definitely! A few years back we were told our teaching plans had to be so explicit that anyone off the street could teach that lesson. Showed me exactly how little they thought of the profession. The first step in bringing it down.

my job is looking at other parts of the business, working out what their problems are and fixing them. I find that i do that, then my boss goes and changes evertyhing but doesn't tell me, then i get in trouble. they say in the jobs "must be able to work independently" and then when you do, you get in trouble. what's the point really. I liked waitressing, it was fun and no worry at the end of the day.

I'm a nurse in a highly specialized field, with post grad training. I am not allowed to think cause that might be dangerous and detrimental to my clients (hospitalized patients) but we have to be pc about these things. I have a flow chart for everything. I even have a care plan written up, not by me, for each of my patients telling me when to weigh them, change lines, even when to update the paperwork.

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Yep, BG my DH works for the same CC as you and has been wanting to get out for a while now. I read your post nodding at every detail cause its the same as what he has told me :P

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funny thing is - given the CC i came from (one of the Telco's), this one is a dream!! i very rarely have anything said to me about performance or anything, so i don't feel like i'm in that position of hating my job like a lot of others there. there is a lot of political stuff, esp at the moment with the negotiations for the new agreement, but i just zone out. i deal with customers, i go home. i don't let it get to me. maybe it comes from the previous experience i have had in other CC's, it may also be that we have a few lower performers in our team so those of us who achieve the stats simply don't feel that pressure because it's being focused on others... i dunno. i genuinely don't mind my job! i have bad calls, like everyone. bad days too. but overall, i just don't have the degree of angst that others do!

So it's affecting teachers as well? Oh dear... *thinking how I'll have to draw up a secondary art lesson so that anyone off the street can teach it* I guess this explains why my son comes home with exactly the same piece of art work as the other 20 students in his class. Teacher doesn't have time to draw up a plan which accomodates the needs and preferences of each individual student... hmmmmm.

Kaz, there is a growing body of research into employee engagement and productivity - I can get you some starting references if you need to back up your ideas! I don't know how long most of the real world will take to catch up to the evidence and implementation of it :rolleyes:
I've been out of the workforce for 5 and a bit years, and I suspect so much has changed, that I have no idea where I'll fit!

definitely in a work sense - my field was marketing. i mistakenly thought this would give me the opportunity to be creative, think, create but ultimately the places i worked limited those things to the two or 3 people at the very top. it was disheartening & unexpected when working for a smaller company. i also worked in a similar role for a university, where i was treated similarly, but at least i expected it in a larger environment. you end up feeling like a machine whose contribution remains unvalued - i think it also breed apathy & makes you more & more reluctant to suggest new ideas the longer you're in the situation.

i also agree with this:

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I also worry how this affects women in labour in a hospital environment. Medical staff probably have to follow quite a strict protocol and ignore their personal thoughts on things... which is why I was told to "hurry up we need this birthing suite, we're really busy todäy" ie I was labouring too slowly according to their script.

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i had DS in a large public hospital. i had GD & PG induced hypertension (from 6 weeks that was well-controlled by meds & no strong traces of protein). at 38 weeks i was encouraged to be induced - regular scans/monitoring showed no issues & both GD & BP were under control. i held out till 40 weeks but then felt pressured to agree. i had had the shortest ante natal appts all the way through my PG - in & out in a couple of mins because i had no real issues. but i felt that because i met a few criteria on their checklist, they ignored my personal situation.

i'm also concerned to hear about teaching. my mum was a teacher & would be horrifed to think that teachers were no longer allowed some freedom in the classroom. i went to a playgroup victoria seminar last week about play. lots of emphasis was placed on allowing children to drive the play & not to provide them with outcomes (assist, but let them reach an end point themselves). there was a story in the booklet about a child at school not being allowed to draw their own picture but having to copy the picture drawn by the teacher & this killing free-thought & choice. i think by treating students as a group (although i understand a need to do this to a certain extent) you miss the opportunity to develop their indivdual strengths & talents. that is so sad.

oh - and one last thing - there's a billy connolly interview with andrew denton where he talks about everyone & everything becoming 'beige' & there being no personality these days. it does feel like that sometimes.

Yes, I worry a bit too about "groupifying" children as a convenience measure in the classroom. And I know that story too that was in the booklet... about a little boy who learnt very well how to sit and wait for the teacher to tell him what to draw and how to draw it... and when he went to a different school where he was allowed to choose how to draw something he was completely lost because all the creativity had been crushed out of him as he learnt how to be a lovely compliant little boy. I know exactly what you mean too Maya! All very scary.

Maybe they will start to "groupify" women in labour in hospitals... all first timers this way... but wait! They already do! for my first pregnancy i was one of about 10 women who stood up and shuffled to the toilets when "all women who are waiting for urine tests please come this way". Delightful isn't it? All in the name of progress.

When I worked for a local council a few years ago I heard the manager say " I would like to give the staff a script to read from so they don't have to think anymore".
I resigned a few weeks after.
I knew my job, was good at my job but would not be told how to talk to a customer....Reading off a script sounds like you are reading off a script and dont care about what the customer wants or needs....I might have to give them a negitive answer but usually I could also give them some advice on what other options they had.

Thank goodness that person is no longer in the position and the staff are still allowed to 'think' and speak for themselves.

Don't get me started on tickboxes during labour! (Hence Stormy is going to be a freebirth just to avoid the tickboxes and all the problems that come with them.)

Bath, if you like I'll e-mail you some of my lesson plans. They are hideously over-prescribed, but there is a good lesson that did allow for freedom of thought, in fact demanded it. Sadly I've only done a few of these lessons as they are so difficult to plan and prepare for, as they do have to be prescribed free thinking. The students are so nervous of these tasks and need to be taught how to do them, that's the saddest part.

We run a tax/account business. This year the company that handles our clients fee from refunds went bust, meaning we had to contact the ATO and individually change the bank account for over 40 of our clients to come to our new bank account (you know so people actually could get their refunds). This took a ridiculous amount of time especially when we got a new member who insisted on sticking to the script by the letter, and reading us the disclaimers before we entered into every section, and our quoting our Tax Agent number before every new client etc, protocol, why did we have to do that more than once? INSANE. Plus, we got one good operator who was fast and only made us go through the rigmarole once on behalf of everyone (obviously willing to ignore some of the protocol to a degree), asked if we could stay on the line with her till we were through them, they are not allowed to be in the phone to anyone for more than 30 minutes at a time regardless of the situation and she would be red flagged if she did. So yes, I spent a full day (half of which on hold waiting to get a new operator every time I rang the line since they made me call back every time) being seriously peeved at the inability of organisations like the ATO to give their employees any discretion anymore.

My last role as a management consultant in a big firm, where i thought being able to think was a criteria for the role, ended with me pretty much being an overpriced typist, sitting in meetings, going over the same questions with different people in the client organisation, only to have the conclusions ignored. It did my head in. I'm a critical thinker, most of the time, which you'd think would be an asset. Apparently thinking critically of overpaid, incompetent project managers who insist on all team members being in 2 hour meetings, when only the relevant supervisor needed to be so the rest of us could get some real work done (yano, what the client is paying for), was not within my purview. Turns out I wasn't a critical thinker after all, I just had an attitude problem. I should have realised that before I spent $40K on an MBA. I guess I'm still slightly bitter about the experience. Whenever I see reports about government agencies spending millions on consulting fees for huge projects that never run on time or on budget and often dont work, I usually laugh hysterically. I've been on the inside. Only a couple of people are actually paid to think. The rest are there to fill in timesheets and charge expenses.

As for hospital thinking. When birthing DS2, there was a fair bit of "discussion" about whether or not I could labour in the bath. Apparently this tertiary hospital did not have a policy for stillbirth labour in the bath, so they were going to let me struggle on in grief and pain. I could have had all the drugs in the world for the asking, but trying to have a normal as possible labour was difficult. One day, when I have the energy, I'll write to someone about that. At least I had an IM who fought for me and I was unaware of the drama whilst it was happening. If the midwives had been allowed to think for themselves, they'd have realised there was no harm and to just let it happen. Other women going through the same pain who dont have their own IM likely wont be given the option.

I think this discussion is why I cling so fiercely to the people who value individual people and the ability to use discretion! In my old town there is a boutique that has lots of things I love in it. I often send people in there, and I developed a rapport with the owner and her main staff member quite early on. By the end of their first year there I was getting $$ knocked off here and there and by the end of the second I was given a beautiful article as a gift (that I had previously coveted!) while I was pregnant and nowadays, if I don't have the money on hand, they tell me to take what I like home and pay it off - there is no cash register, no policy book, just autonomous, thinking people...they've been there since 2007, so it can't be that bad for business, when most other shops on that strip open for maybe a year or two then fold.
I actually fear the advancement of "computer says 'no'" mentality creeping into just about everywhere.

Interesting thread and so many areas involved. I work in a big hospital and we too have every task now with complimentary tick sheets, for almost every single process. So much so that you spend more time doing the proof of the task than the task (or at least that is how it feels). Rather scarily I have seen people more worried about the tick box being done and not realising the task has not been completed or that they should have focussed on something else.
Sorry to hear about the stress it has been causing your DH and family Bath - my Dh has struggled alot with his environment as well.