Veto-by-Proxy

 

Veto-by-Proxy

 

AKA: Are you helping or not?

People with the power of approval or with influence over those who do hold power frequently veto-by-proxy. i.e. although they never actually say no or withhold approval, they make it so hard to succeed the project will fail, leaving them innocent in any part of the failure. 

The basic tenet of veto-by-proxy is to stop something happening without being identified as being responsible for or initiating negative activity whilst at the same time overtly supporting the initiative. Whilst such behaviour is initially difficult to spot, the accumulation of minor inconsistencies and incongruous behaviour often leads to a vague perception that all is not what it seems. Common behaviours to look out for are: 

Inappropriate level focus on minor risks and issues (nit picking)

  • Inappropriate level focus on minor risks and issues (nit picking)
  • Constantly seeking improvements over-and above that which is necessary (gilding the lily)
  • Complaining about things that are not actually relevant. (diversion)
  • Divisive messaging[1] (confusion)
    • Carefully crafted but inconsistent/contradictory messages
    • Acting as though the messages are not inconsistent
    • Making the ambiguity undiscussable
    • Making the discussable undiscussable
  • Causing confusion and conflict among peers (division)
  • Setting needless, overly aggressive and impossible targets (demoralisation)
  • Administrative delays (hiding behind process)
  • Focus on other things (deflection).

 

Prevention is hard, a cure is worse. 

Many people will express the “required opinion” when it’s politically or financially expedient for them to do so. This does not change their underlying viewpoint nor their support, or lack thereof, for an initiative. If this is the case, many of their actions will be driven by both conscious and unconscious biases against the initiative. 

The simplest way to avoid veto-by-proxy is to spend time an effort ensuring all parties are “bought into” the initiative and are therefore in support, so have no need for such tactics. 

However, if someone is attempting veto-by-proxy the behaviour tends to escalate as time goes on and the initiative gains momentum and it gets harder to slow things down. Moreover, people will also try to cover up their behaviour to avoid future exposure, should their tactics succeed. This leads to cover up, on top of cover up, on to of disingenuous behaviour. i.e. a whole spiders web of lies and deceit – with the final cover up being worse than the original transgression. 

Unfortunately, the only way to address such tactics is to expose the bevahour as unhelpful. This is hard, as it involves both contradicting the perpetrators but also calling into question their motivations – which takes a great deal of, often forensic evidencing… and asking WHY people are doing what they’re doing, then not accepting their first answer. Initially, this should be done in private as fear of exposure will cause them to cover up even more. They will, unfortunately have a list of justifications as long as your arm.  Perstence is key, appeasement never works, stick with it and normally the behaviour will quetly dimish.  

Nobody needs lose face, all that needs to happen is the original covert support project is fully and willingly maintained, nobody  ever needs to know they were a "nay-sayer".  That promise, or veiled threat, is sometimes sufficient to get them to stop.  The alternative is public exposure.

 


[1] Argyris 1990 – Overcoming Organizational Defenses pp.27

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