Image via Wikipedia
If you’ve ever managed employees, or been a part of an organization, chances are you’ve come across an oxpecker. Almost every organization has them, and they can be a real nuisance. You might be asking yourself, just what is an oxpecker? Aside from being a fun word to say, an oxpecker is a little bird that lives in Africa and makes its living riding around on the back of large mammals (zebras, giraffes, wildebeests, etc.) and eats the parasites off them. This might seem like a helpful bird, until you consider how they’ve also been known to dig at their hosts wounds as well. Ultimately, the oxpecker is just another parasite, albeit one who has climbed the ladder to “king parasite”. They have been blessed with the gift of flight, yet seem content to take the free ride instead.
This, then, begs the question: Does your organization have an oxpecker problem? These are the free ride/free lunch guys. In other words, those who do not take initiative, have no fire in the belly, or seem incapable of making good things happen. In sales, these are the low hanging fruit guys. Those who might be great with what walks in the door (or eating the parasites that are right in front of them) but are not capable of finding the hard to reach fruit. Organizational oxpeckers wait for the phone to ring, the prospect to knock on the door, or some other even to happen. They don’t take the initiative to make things happen.
Sometimes, all it takes to fix the problem is for the oxpecker to become self-aware—to realize they are perceived as oxpeckers. However, most often the oxpecker has settled into this role over a long period of time. They’ve become accustomed to the path of least resistance. This type of employee can be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to turn around. The key is to take away that low hanging fruit that allows them to settle for mediocrity and never reach their full potential. If your oxpecker is in outside sales, but seems content to settle for whatever prospect calls in or walks in the door, the solution might be as simple as changing their incentive structure to disallow walk-in or call-in business that they did not develop.
Management is often the playing the role of agitator rather than micromanager. Stirring things up via change to incentives is often the most effective route to take. Managers might not be able to motivate an employee; however, they can provide an environment where in the employee might better motivate themselves.
Related articles
- Prepare daily for annual evaluations (budtoboss.wordpress.com)
