JFDI — When rationality and common sense leave the building…
Tags: Work, Entrepreneurship, Management, Leadership, Motivation

…and morale leaves too.

JFDI — Just F**king Do It — It’s the exhortation of dictatorial leaders who demand action and compliance from their team. They insist that their instructions are followed and rule out autonomy, free-thinking and creativity in their workforce.

We don’t live in an ideal world. It’s impossible to expect that every member of the workforce will apply their utmost creativity and professionalism and deliver co-ordinated efforts to bring about meaningful change, all the time. For this reason, some might say there is a place in the workplace for JFDI. There was once, perhaps during the industrial age but now I’m less convinced. Here’s why.

JFDI leadership emerges when those striving to captivate, inspire and direct as leaders lose the ability to believe those around them might have the ability to actually do their job and act professionally. The leader comes to rely on micro-management, the issuing of edicts and unreasonable orders to those in their charge, convinced that there’s no other way to bring about the results they desire. Their innate narcissism becomes the driving force behind their leadership style. Nobody else could possibly do their job, their word is law and their methods are not to be questioned.

The emerging working environment demands that the middle managers between the leaders and the do-ers adopt the JFDI party-line, complicit in enforcing the orders and accountable for making their reports to do the job in the prescribed way. This is the case regardless of whether they agree with the sentiment or the request from on-high, or not.

JFDI, the bastardisation of the former Nike advertising slogan has corrupted the sentiment and skewed the phrase that used to accompany the swoosh. A call-to-action designed (presumably) to challenge limitations, to break down boundaries and to urge the taking of action, instead becomes an order to abandon ones-own instincts and right to question whether a request is valid, worthwhile or sensible. Instead, we’re ordered to knuckle down and get on with it. The sentiment alters completely through the insertion of the f-word.

JFDI seems to be pulled from the managerial toolbox under a variety of circumstances.

It justifies non-sensical and unreasonable requests for information, all-too-frequent progress updates and predictions about the future that are then held as gospel.

It mandates the adoption of tools, techniques and methodologies that are in vogue or the flavour of the month, but which are far from fit-for-purpose. Whether driven out of vanity, corporate conformance or simply a desire to be at the cutting edge, JFDI is a helpful way for the leader to exert their personal agenda thorough the work of others.

It’s used to deploy the combined smoke and mirrors of significance and meaning, convincing us that certain requests and orders must carry weight and value. This is implied through their origin, regardless of whether they make any sense; it’s come from the top so it must be important, right?

JFDI… not JEDI… (Credit: Flow Grafitti)

JFDI is the go-to weapon in the arsenal of the leader who has bitten off more than they can chew, who feels that their demands should be respected and responded to unquestioningly. Their will is not to be doubted and the more that JFDI is responded to, the more likely it’s going to be used to bring about further responses in future. It’s an addictive tool, and dependence upon it is built up quickly. JFDI soon becomes the norm, and eventually the only means they have of bringing about action from their workforce.

The problem is that for a while their methods may seem effective. Their charges may be carried along on the waves of achievement resulting from JFDI, but seldom do these last and rarely will a team want to follow a JFDI leader for the long term. At best, they will begrudgingly comply out of fear of reprisals. They know that to fail to answer one request adequately will undoubtedly spawn many more-pointed and more-urgent JFDI requests.

Sooner or later, resentments creep in as the volume and magnitude of the asks that must be answered, increases. This quickly dissolves what little morale and motivation remains. That’s where many who’ve suffered JFDI leadership then find themselves, trying to keep their head above water, working reactively in a bid to stay off the radar and generally biding their time until new opportunities present themselves. Some can stand it no longer and have to bail out.

The JFDI leader will point to those few examples who respond positively to their methods, who even seem to emulate them. There can be little doubt though in most of these cases that the positive respondents are those who do so to court favour and who want to be like the JDFI at the top. The bad news is that one day they see their place above their erstwhile mentor, issuing the ultimatums, not merely responding to them.

It’s your choice… (Photo by Rommel Davila on Unsplash)

Life, and particularly working-life doesn’t conform to ideals. There will always be unpalatable tasks, the work that isn’t meaningful or fulfilling to those who are required to do it. Nonetheless it needs to be done on-time, to spec and in compliance with rules and legislation. The successful delivery may even carry life-or-death consequences when done, or not done properly. This work requires a JFDI mind-set from those who are doing the doing, lest they screw it up and bring about the consequences. They have to knuckle down to the task at hand regardless of whether they see or believe in the merits of it, or whether it is palatable or not, just because that’s the way it is. In this instance though, we all need to exert our own discipline and recognise that it’s our internal JFDI order to issue to ourselves.

The corrosive nature of JFDI only manifests when it becomes the norm for leaders in getting a response from those in their stewardship. When all a leader has is JFDI to motivate and bring about results, when the only method he or she has at their disposal is to issue JFDI directives, then it’s questionable whether they really have any meaningful power to exert at all.

JFDI generally takes bad ideas and ill-conceived requests with little merit in their own-right and endows them with undeserved meaning and justification. Efforts that could have been directed with creativity and autonomy are instead diverted to reacting to the JFDI, often at the expense of positive and worthy tasks. A litany of JFDIs in quick succession can divert so much of a person’s attention as to prevent them from having the time, capacity or residual motivation to do their own work, the thing they are paid for. Their working time is used up responding to the JFDIs.

Sometimes, JFDI is a last resort and a necessary evil to enforce compliance and co-operation, or as a means of directing the collective efforts towards an unpalatable but essential activity. The danger comes when JFDI is the default and is used as a means of exerting the leader’s own will to control and influence each and every outcome in line with their own masterplan.

JFDI comes from the same management school as my way or the highway. Compliance and conformity come at the expense of constrained creativity and autonomy. Inspiration and a belief in working towards a common-goal are drained from the workforce and replaced by resignation to toeing the line. The idea of being free to do ones-best to bring about the best possible result for all concerned seems like a distant pipe-dream.

JFDI may be the right management response on occasion, but having been on the receiving end and (reluctantly) having used it myself on occasion, I understand more and more that it’s by no means universally applicable as a management style.

JFDI works when dealing with a non-compliant child. It has its place when a task is necessitated by regulation, or where failure to do it right or to do it at all will have life-or-death consequences. In an environment where the workforce are used to being treated with professionalism, with a relatively free-rein of productivity and trusted to give of themselves to deliver their best work, JFDI can be a fatal-blow to morale.

Its origins are in a past-era, a time when the boss and employee relationship demanded a degree of deference and servitude towards the leader. Status came with title.

Those days are gone. I think it’s time JFDI went too.

Toby

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