Switch - Chip Heath [47]
When DYS shifted to the network model, the focus of the accounting department shifted, too. Now it was outside vendors who were submitting the reimbursement requests, not employees. And we can say one thing for Attila: He was consistent. He treated the new vendors with the same dictatorial style that he had used with his in-house colleagues. If vendors submitted reports that weren’t perfect, he rejected them. This created big problems, though. As Sitkin said, “These nonprofits didn’t have a lot of slack. They were living on a shoestring, and so delays in payments really jeopardized their ability to serve kids.”
Sitkin and Gail Anne Healy, the deputy commissioner of DYS, began to field desperate calls from these nonprofits. In some cases, they couldn’t make payroll unless Attila cut their checks quickly. Sitkin and Healy tried to reason with Attila; they tried to explain why it was important to cut the vendors some slack. But, as we’ve seen repeatedly, the knowledge wasn’t enough to trigger a change. Attila stayed Attila.
Frustrated, Sitkin and Healy asked Attila to join them on a road trip. The three of them drove out to visit several of DYS’s key service providers. Often, these providers were operating from old houses in run-down neighborhoods. Their offices looked dilapidated and chaotic. And in the midst of this environment, the staffers were earnestly trying to work small miracles. “The typical staffer,” said Sitkin, “was like a combination of a beat cop and a social worker. Sometimes they struck you as people who might have once been in the same position as the kids they were trying to reach. They were working hard and obviously not making a lot of money.”
During the visits, Attila saw firsthand how busy they were and how distracting the workplace was. They didn’t have closed-door offices as he did. It was noisy, thanks to the kids who were living in the homes—they were constantly coming and going, or cooking meals, or just hanging around and talking. Social workers were rushing around, trying to keep tabs on the kids, and shuttling them to doctors’ offices or job interviews.
Attila saw and felt the precarious financial situation of these nonprofits. They were hanging by a thread. When he held up one of their checks, it meant that they couldn’t pay for something. They might have to delay payroll, or skimp on food, or postpone a doctor’s visit for a kid who needed it. For the first time, Attila got a gut-check about the harm he was causing with his nitpicking. He came back to the office a transformed man.
Mind you, he was still Attila. He was still authoritarian, and he still yelled. But he changed what he was yelling about. “Before, he’d yell at his staff, ‘Why did you give me this form when it’s got something missing?!’” said Sitkin. “Afterwards, he switched to, ‘Don’t you realize what happens when we don’t get this check out on time?! People have to make payroll!’”
Attila’s transformation represented a victory over positive illusions. Before the field trip, if Attila had been asked to assess his performance as an accountant, he almost certainly would have put himself in the top 10 percent. In his mind, accounting was about paying attention to details, maintaining rigorous standards, and resisting political pressure.
He would have been right to score himself highly on those measures—but also self-serving. One reason we’re able to believe that we’re better-than-average leaders and drivers and spouses and team players