DON’T LET LAZY MANAGERS DRIVE YOU AWAY FROM YOUR BEST

“When managers seek ready-made answers, they close their eyes to the complexity of good management, and the dance of talents gives way to a sad monologue of mediocrity.” (Marcello de Souza)

Imagine the scenario of a highly innovative and promising company, full of brilliant talents. However, despite the potential, the team seems unmotivated and disengaged. What could be happening? The answer may lie in lazy management. In this article, we will explore how the leader’s behavior can significantly affect talent retention and how neuroscience plays a crucial role in this context.

The Epidemic of Lazy Management

In many organizations, lazy management is a silent epidemic. Leaders’ lack of commitment to developing their leadership skills can have devastating effects on talent retention. Managers who simply go with the flow and avoid making tough decisions hinder team growth and drive away the most talented employees.

The fact is that lazy managers represent a subtle but significant threat to the company’s organizational climate, especially when it comes to recognizing and retaining the best talents.

Many mistakenly believe that being a good manager is just a matter of common sense, like those described in self-help manuals or promoted at those events managed by so many pseudo-gurus. In fact, the volume and availability of solutions to management, leadership, retention, and engagement problems through blogs, books, podcasts, and other sources are greater than ever, and the reality is that much of the material is garbage aimed at lazy managers looking for quick fixes.

Know that this is one of those misconceptions that can lead to neglect of crucial leadership responsibilities and cause damages that often become catastrophic.

If it were true that leadership competence is as easy as imagined and could be described in manuals, organizations would be full of skilled managers, and employee satisfaction and retention would be high. However, current statistics reveal a different reality: only 13% of employees are truly engaged at work, and turnover has been increasing for almost two decades. These alarming data point to the possibility that most managers lack the necessary common sense or that good management is, in practice, a complex challenge.

As a cognitive behavioral developer, I have dedicated much of my time to studying organizational behavior; nevertheless, in theory, it is very clear that being a good manager and retaining employees is not easy. In fact, for over 100 years, since the early classical schools of management, researchers have been striving to find out how to keep a team engaged and productive.

When considering engagement, it becomes clear that there are a series of factors that influence employee retention. Both in theory and in practice, engaging and retaining employees is a complex endeavor and it takes a lot of work to do it well. When managers accept the “common sense” view of management, they see little value in making efforts to lead their teams. As a result, they end up falling into their own trap, becoming hostage to their own neurocognitive patterns — they literally become lazy. As I will explain, there are at least two symptoms associated with lazy management:

1. The tendency of managers to blame low performance and employee turnover on others rather than themselves or the company, and
2. The tendency of managers to seek quick solutions to complex retention problems.

When we delve into the psyche, it has long been possible to find studies that demonstrate that people often overestimate the role of personality and underestimate the power of the situation in shaping human behavior. When managers falter, they tend to make this attribution error more frequently and on a larger scale, believing that employees act in such a way because they are that way.

By blaming employees for performance or retention-related issues, lazy managers avoid doing the hard work of self-feedback, honestly assessing how their own management style affects employee satisfaction, performance, and turnover. Furthermore, lazy managers believe that good management is simple, and when something goes wrong, they resort to obvious and easy-to-find solutions. For example, when employee productivity becomes an issue, lazy managers quickly think of raising salaries or bonuses as an antidote — an expensive solution that does not solve the problem(s) — thus, they almost always tend to immediately switch resources, claiming that the problem lies with them.

Even though most managers realize that their employees want to be treated fairly, have meaningful work, feel belongingness, recognition, and fulfillment, and so on, as employees feel that these needs are being met, it can vary on a daily basis. Therefore, even though diligent management requires greater attention and persistence from its leaders when trying to understand the reason for low productivity or why their employees may be thinking of leaving the company and how much time, energy, and other resources will be needed to increase their engagement.

Culture as organizational climate are living processes that require permanent analysis. For this, there is only one way, which is precisely the strengthening of human relationships for sincere and effective communication. The problem with this type of approach is that it generates fear for those managers who prefer to live in their comfort zone and cannot deal with what really needs to be done and face things head-on.

The fact is that even good managers can sometimes fall into their own cognitive traps! So, what to do if you or someone from your management team show signs of lazy management?

The Cognitive Effects of Lazy Management

Imagine you are walking in a forest; you have been walking for hours and you are very hungry. At the top of a mountain, in the distance, you see an apple tree. You run towards it. Your gaze is focused on the wonderful apples. But when you get there, you realize that the apples are rotten. You cannot eat them. However, all along the path you traveled, there were dozens of fruit trees of all kinds. You just needed to be open to observing the trajectory until you reached your goal. If you had looked around…!

Have you ever heard of heuristics?

They are a type of mental shortcut that our brain uses to save time. That is, if the same result can be achieved through two paths, the brain will try to use the one that requires the least number of resources to expedite the result.

Neuroscience explains that lazy management can result from human cognitive tendencies, such as unconscious biases and decision-making based on patterns. When leaders give in to these tendencies, they may not realize the negative impact on their team, failing to recognize the potential of each member and limiting their growth prospects. In other words, this means that we are governed by a principle of mental time economy. It is something uncontrollable, intangible, that escapes our consciousness. And it is an explanation of why our brain prefers to seek data that validates our hypotheses rather than those that contradict them.

That is often how the human brain works. We behave like lazy people. We only look forward, with a fixed idea, without bothering to pay attention to what is actually happening around us during the process. This type of resistance occurs because we wander unable to assimilate contradiction and detach ourselves from our beliefs. It is not stubbornness, something more related to the study of personality traits. It is submission to irreversibility. This happens because, first of all, the human brain has a natural tendency to seek the easiest and most efficient way to perform tasks. This is known as “cognitive economy” — remembering that “cognitive economy” is related to time and not to energy, as many mistakenly still think.

When we apply this concept to management, lazy managers may cling to strategies that are already predefined in their heads based on their own references, thus requiring less mental time. In the same vein, this type of manager finds it easy to blame employee performance or resort to quick fixes for complex retention problems when their strategy goes wrong. These attitudes reflect a reluctance to face challenges and engage in more elaborate and reflective approaches. When humans are confronted with their own mistakes, they often prefer: NOT to follow exactly the opposite path. On the contrary, the tendency is to cling to our beliefs and make them irreversible. To become blind to the existence of another reality and firmly maintain our position. That is the wonderful complexity and imperfection of the human brain. Believe me, this is not only a psychic issue but also a physiological one.

Another relevant aspect of neuroscience is the propensity of the human brain to seek immediate rewards, to the detriment of long-term benefits. This is linked to the reward system, where behaviors that bring immediate satisfaction, such as seeking quick solutions, trigger reward mechanisms in the brain. In other words, lazy managers may prefer solutions that offer instant results, even if these actions do not effectively solve the issue in the long term. The problem is that this does not always occur consciously, after all, it has to do with certain brain areas involving mental systems in the interaction of various neurotransmitters and hormones. Two of the main hormones associated with the sensation of satisfaction and pleasure produced by the reward system are:

• Dopamine: Dopamine is often referred to as the “pleasure hormone” or “reward hormone.” Dopamine plays a fundamental role in motivation, learning, mood regulation, and reinforcing behaviors perceived as rewarding.

• Serotonin: Serotonin is another neurotransmitter associated with emotional well-being and a sense of satisfaction. Although best known for its role in mood regulation, serotonin is also involved in the brain’s reward system. Adequate levels of serotonin are related to pleasure, relaxation, and an overall sense of well-being.

Among others, these two hormones act in such a way that, over time, the mind begins to create triggers to facilitate their production. These same triggers end up hindering the natural cognitive process for decision-making. In other words, the mind begins to seek quick and practical answers, minimizing logical capability for making good decisions in pursuit of immediate pleasure. This harms areas like certain regions of the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which play a crucial role in decision-making, planning, and impulse control. It’s no coincidence that lazy managers show less activation in this area, which can lead to less thoughtful decisions and less reflective management.

Conversely, “vitaminized” managers often have better development in this brain region, allowing them to make more balanced and strategic decisions. The paradox of this is that being an active person, one who doesn’t act out of desire but out of will, that is, who seeks to reflect in order to obtain more information through critical and analytical thinking and makes thoughtful and well-elaborated decisions, can consolidate much more rewarding and pleasurable triggers without clinging to their own limiting beliefs; on the contrary, pleasure begins to be directed towards the challenges themselves.

Another contribution of neuroscience to understanding lazy management is related to the phenomenon of “loss aversion.” The human brain tends to value losses more than equivalent gains. Lazy managers may avoid taking more energetic and transformative actions for fear that this will result in greater losses or wear and tear. Thus, they opt for a conservative and less committed approach, which seems less risky to them, although it may be harmful in the long run. This is because, over time, this manager increasingly limits their vision of their actions, becoming a mediocre manager, a prisoner of fear and their own insecurity. Fear and insecurity generate stress, which, as you know, is a bodily response to challenging or threatening situations, involving the activation of various neuroendocrine responses, including the release of hormones such as:

• Cortisol: Known as the “stress hormone,” it is secreted in response to stress and plays a fundamental role in regulating the body’s response to it. It is involved in releasing energy to cope with stressful situations, increasing blood glucose levels, suppressing non-essential body functions during emergencies, and raising blood pressure.

• Adrenaline (epinephrine) and noradrenaline (norepinephrine): These hormones are rapidly released by the adrenal glands in response to acute or threatening stress situations. They prepare the body for a “fight or flight” response, increasing heart rate, dilating airways, raising blood pressure, and mobilizing energy to face the stressful situation.

• Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH): CRH is released by the hypothalamus, and ACTH is released by the pituitary gland in response to stress. These hormones trigger the release of cortisol by the adrenal glands as part of the stress response.

These hormones work together to prepare the body to face stressful situations and adapt to challenges. However, when stress becomes chronic and persistent, it tends to negatively affect the ability to think more strategically and have a more systemic and logical view in daily life in several ways. When the body is under chronic or acute stress, elevated levels of hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline affect brain function mainly in the activities of the cerebral limbic region, such as reducing the volume of the hippocampus, a region associated with memory and learning, contributing to long-term cognitive problems in several ways:

• Concentration difficulties: Stress can lead to a feeling of mental overload, making it difficult to concentrate on complex and strategic tasks.

• Memory impairment: Excess cortisol can affect the formation and retrieval of memories, impairing the ability to recall important information.

• Tunnel vision: Under stress, the brain can focus on immediate and urgent aspects, leading to tunnel vision and difficulty visualizing broader and systemic issues.

• Impulsive decision-making: Stress can lead to an exaggerated emotional response, resulting in impulsive and irrational decision-making.

• Less creativity: Under high levels of stress, the mind tends to become more rigid, which can affect the ability to find creative solutions to problems.

• Increased anxiety: Chronic stress can lead to high levels of anxiety, which can hinder the ability to think clearly and logically.

• Mental fatigue: Prolonged stress can lead to mental fatigue, reducing the ability to cope with complex and challenging tasks.

What Can We Do

First, being aware that when employees are not engaged, instead of asking if something is wrong, managers should consider the possibility that management may be doing something wrong. After opening their minds to this possibility, managers can determine if this is the case by collecting data. For example, organizational climate assessments, when quick and frequent, can be useful for closely analyzing how employees feel about their jobs and the work performed by management.

Similarly, self-development tools, such as the Reflected Best Self Exercise (RBSE) — which helps people understand and leverage their individual talents — can provide leaders with feedback that can help them use their strengths more effectively. In short, managers need to take action, even reluctantly, to collect evidence and inform what they can do to re-engage their employees. The good news is that if managers signal to employees that they are willing to work hard and make significant changes, some will feel more supported and likely to stay with the company.

Second, managers willing to make an effort will see ongoing advancements in management practice and study, offering an increasingly wide range of tools to diagnose and deal with employee retention challenges. Not every tool fits a particular manager’s style and company circumstances. Therefore, good managers need not only to continue learning but also to have the discipline to check if the advice they receive, even when based on strong evidence and best practices, will be suitable for their team.

And what if managers were seen not only as leaders but as developers of behaviors, shaping an environment conducive to mutual growth?

To improve talent retention, it’s essential for managers to see themselves as behavioral developers. Conducting pilot tests of changes before full implementation can be extremely helpful. For example, by stimulating employees’ pro-social motivation through customer feedback, it’s possible to conduct a test with a subgroup of employees. This approach provides evidence of the impact on attitudes and performance, informing the decision to adopt it on a larger scale. Fortunately, there are various resources available for managers who wish to explore the potential of people analytics and improve their organizations. The numbers speak: people analytics revealing valuable insights to enhance management and retain talent.

What Else Can We Do

In summary, as seen, neuroscience provides valuable insights for understanding the characteristics of lazy management. Aspects such as cognitive economy, pursuit of immediate rewards, prefrontal cortex functioning, and loss aversion can influence the choices and behaviors of managers who exhibit lazy tendencies. However, brain plasticity paves the way for change and personal improvement, enabling managers to become more engaged, reflective, and proactive, thus avoiding driving the best talents away from their teams.

When we strongly believe in something and are presented with evidence that challenges that belief, we have two functional possibilities that we can adopt: The first is to realize that we may be wrong, assume that our opinion is wrong, and rethink our point of view. This would be using strategically critical thinking. Or, the other existing possibility and which I understand to be easier to achieve the best result: to do exactly the opposite, starting from reversible thinking. Detach ourselves from our beliefs and make them reversible. Open our eyes to the existence of another reality and firmly keep open to other positions. This is also the wonderful complexity of the plasticity of the human brain that is capable of learning to deal with its own contradictions.

Why is it so important?

Reversible thinking is the ability that people have to reason bidirectionally, that is, to go from one direction until reaching its opposite. It gives us the ability to solve complex problems and allows us to see all the intermediate positions between opposing opinions. But understand! This does not mean that on the opposite face is polarized, black-and-white thinking. That is, one thing is not one thing or another. It’s not that there is no middle ground or possible discussions on the subject. This kind of polarity leaves us stagnant, immobile, and paralyzed.

Reversible thinking is a way of thinking that broadens our perspective and makes it easier to overcome difficulties, both professional and personal. Thanks to this reversibility, we can observe our conflicts or problems from a broader perspective and treat them more directly and logically.

If we manage to position ourselves at one of the intermediate points on this continuum between two extremes, we will be able to harness the potential of our reversible thinking. This is the kind of thinking that truly sets us in motion.

In social psychology, it’s fair to say that we often tend to become blind to evidence, where there are at least 8 reactions to contrary evidence that act neurologically on our decisions, particularly the possible psychic reactions when faced with evidence contrary to our beliefs. The first 3 are more characteristic of irreversible thinking: ignoring, denying, and excluding data. The last 5 belong to reversible thinking: suspending judgment, reinterpreting data, accepting them, making peripheral changes in theory; and accepting the data and changing theories.

Why don’t we use our reversible thinking?

Our brain is not as perfect as we believe, despite being considered a meticulous organ that is dedicated to executing precise rational analyses. But when we raise this question of the reversibility of thought, we realize that it’s not so. As seen, we usually direct our efforts to find data, evidence, hypotheses that confirm our beliefs. We rarely choose otherwise.

Now, if we continuously practice seeking evidence that challenges our tendencies, we teach mental reframing, that is, we no longer interpret differences as self-sabotage and thus try to rid our heads of conflicting ideas — just find some evidence that we’re right to reaffirm our thinking and conform. For example, someone who is convinced that the vaccine harms health will search the two million pages on the internet for the one that claims “vaccine shortens life.” Despite being fallacious, if we don’t have reversible thinking, we’ll be swayed by that statement. From the millions of pages indicating the opposite and the various studies scientifically confirming its benefits when a person is vaccinated, we would stick with the one that reinforces our belief. Therefore, the practice of reversible thinking is a constant challenge.

For reversible thinking to occur, another formal, logical, and rational is required. It involves an effort that our brain is not always willing to take on. It’s easier to settle and conform to an opinion — our true self, even if it leads us to complete idiocy. It’s easier to settle and conform to an opinion that aligns with our limiting beliefs. As seen, our brain suffers from cognitive laziness! We need to demystify its functioning and know that it often uses any method to avoid work.

This happens constantly in our daily lives. It may seem strange, but nobody is exempt. Faced with the same event, we can cling to our opinion without caring about the rest or broaden our view and pay attention to controversies.

In Practice

Finally, when retention-related issues arise unexpectedly, leaders should consider if lazy management is the cause of the problem. If managers always take the same actions regarding employee engagement and retention, it may be an indicative sign that they lack the time, resources, and motivation needed to do more. Since diligent management requires short-term willingness, but the reward only comes in the long term, some managers shirk their responsibilities because they are too focused on short-term goals.

Therefore, to avoid the trap of lazy management, leaders need to commit to the continuous development of their leadership skills. Some practical tips include:

• Fostering a culture of open and honest feedback, encouraging communication between leader and team.

• Setting clear and challenging goals to motivate employees to achieve their best performance.

• Recognizing and rewarding effort and good work, nurturing a sense of appreciation and belonging in the team.

Thus, in order to discourage lazy management, managers need the necessary support, incentives, and guidelines to motivate them to dedicate time and willingness to managing their team.

Furthermore, instead of blaming lazy managers for not retaining employees, leaders should carefully look at the selection and promotion processes and find out why these people initially obtained management positions. For example, if they were promoted because they have excellent technical skills, they may have become lazy because they felt deprived of what they did best. If the promotion processes for the managerial position do not focus on indicating those most likely to accept the challenge of good management, lazy management can spread throughout the company.

Management is not easy, and it takes much more than common sense to develop and maintain a highly motivated workforce today. By abandoning the “common sense” mentality directly associated with lazy management, managers can learn from mental plasticity, thus soon realizing that we can reframe our own beliefs, as well as experience for themselves that facing challenges starting from our own beliefs is much more enjoyable and rewarding. And they will soon realize how their actions influence employees to stop seeking easy fixes and exert the thought and effort that are rare in many workplaces. Without ever forgetting that lazy management can undermine the potential of any team and lead to the flight of the most valuable talents. By adopting an active and committed approach, managers can create more engaged, productive teams, and, above all, an organizational culture that values talent growth and retention.

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Hello, I’m Marcello de Souza! I started my career in 1997 as a leader and manager in a large company in the IT and Telecommunications market. Since then, I have participated in important projects of structuring, implementation, and optimization of telecommunications networks in Brazil. Restless and passionate about behavioral and social psychology. In 2008, I decided to delve into the universe of the human mind.

Since then, I have become a professional passionate about deciphering the secrets of human behavior and catalyzing positive changes in individuals and organizations. Doctor in Social Psychology, with over 25 years of experience in Cognitive Behavioral and Human Organizational Development. With a wide-ranging career, I highlight my role as:

– Master Senior Coach and Trainer: Guiding my clients in the pursuit of goals and personal and professional development, achieving extraordinary results.

– Chief Happiness Officer (CHO): Fostering an organizational culture of happiness and well-being, boosting productivity and employee engagement.

– Expert in Language and Behavioral Development: Enhancing communication and self-awareness skills, empowering individuals to face challenges with resilience.

– Cognitive Behavioral Therapist: Using cutting-edge cognitive-behavioral therapy to help overcome obstacles and achieve a balanced mind.

– Speaker, Professor, Writer, and Researcher: Sharing valuable knowledge and ideas in events, training, and publications to inspire positive changes.

– Consultant and Mentor: Leveraging my experience in leadership and project management to identify growth opportunities and propose personalized strategies.

My solid academic background includes four postgraduates and a doctorate in Social Psychology, along with international certifications in Management, Leadership, and Cognitive Behavioral Development. My contributions in the field are widely recognized in hundreds of classes, training sessions, conferences, and published articles.

Co-author of the book “The Secret of Coaching” and author of “The Map Is Not the Territory, the Territory Is You” and “The Diet Society” (the first of a trilogy on human behavior in contemporaneity – 05/2024).

Allow me to be your companion on this journey of self-discovery and success. Together, we will unravel a universe of behavioral possibilities and achieve extraordinary results.

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