The Psychology of Records Management - Avoid Motivating Good Employees to Behave Badly by Craig Grimestad

Implementing or running a successful Information Governance / Records and Information Management program requires full cooperation from all employees. As companies advance their Information Governance or Records Management programs, they need to be cautious and diligent in their planning and implementation so they do not motivate good employees to behave badly by not complying with the policy or improvement initiatives. While participation is never voluntary, full cooperation requires individuals to make choices and take actions that are consistent with the intent of the initiative. This is most easily accomplished when each individual actually supports the complete change (both the change and its timing), and clearly sees the path they need to take. Troubles arise when individuals see problems for themselves with the change, the social consequence of that change, the timing of the change, or some combination of these three. If no satisfactory resolution is found, they may then start making independent decisions and taking actions that are not supportive of the initiative or requirements. Perhaps surprisingly, this often occurs with the best and brightest within a company.

Employees who are strong contributors, often carry a significant amount of information, convenience copies, and Official Records. They are loyal and responsible individuals who care deeply for their company's well-being and are confident that they have a role to play in the continued success of the business. They have established themselves as a go to person an individual who can be counted on to solve problems and provide leadership through crisis situations - a role model for others to follow.

Then the day comes when someone who does not know them, their contribution to the company, and their need to access records and information to continue to contribute at a high level, issues a directive requiring disposal of valuable information. Feeling responsible for continuing their strong contribution, when asked or required to dispose of records or information from email, shared drives, or repositories, they evaluate the request and make a determination of what they think is best. Having been burned before, with other company programs and initiatives, they resist disposing of records without a means of preserving the intelligence. Individuals in this situation have been known to be very creative in relocating the information or records. Moving information and records away from a known repository to one that is hidden is a dangerous practice, and all the more so when the transfer of Company information and records goes into a private domain. While this might be more common these days with electronic files, this is a media neutral problem. Employees have been known to have boxes of paper records in their garage because they felt a need to keep what there wasn't space for at the office, or what was supposed to be disposed of because they were convinced they might need them. So while the Team thinks they have improved Company risk, in fact, it has become worse.

I am not excusing bad behavior, but I know how it happens and that it can be prevented. Hopefully you do as well and are in a position to do something about it for your company. As we learned before, following Juran's Rules of the Road for Cultural Change (see http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2013/service-lines/records-management-and-storage/the-psychology-of-records-management-rules-of-the-road-for-cultural-change/ ) removes the motivation for employee bad behavior and leads to successfully implemented initiatives. At a minimum, Rule # 1 Provide Participation to the Recipient Society (see http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2013/service-lines/records-management-and-storage/the-psychology-of-records-management-rules-of-the-road-for-cultural-change-rule-1/ ) , and Rule #3 Provide Enough Time for the Recipient Society(see http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2013/service-lines/records-management-and-storage/the-psychology-of-records-management-rules-of-the-road-for-cultural-change-rules-2-3/ ) , would have found the problem and led to a successful resolution. For the particular concern demonstrated here, there is a simple two part guide to follow: Before reducing an employee's ability to retain information, be sure to satisfy employee needs to retain or access information.

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2015/uncategorized/avoid-motivating-good...
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