One-way entitlement creates a toxic dynamic within organisations, projects and businesses. Perhaps you’ve noticed it too?
“As a manager I’m entitled to a parking space”
“As an employee, I’m entitled to do my job the way I’ve always done it”
“As a stakeholder, I’m entitled to ignore you because I’m more senior, important and busy”
As a barrier to change, a sense of entitlement is up there with the best of them. Nothing reinforces the status quo like an ingrained sense of entitlement and an unwillingness to shift. Entitlement might not be rational, justified or even deserved, yet at the same time it highlights a set of deep cultural beliefs that projects and organisations are ill-advised to ignore.
Watch out for it on your projects. Challenge it. Work hard to understand people’s needs, desires and fears. Make sure it doesn’t derail your project.
About the author:
Adrian Reed is Principal Consultant at Blackmetric Business Solutions, an organisation that offers Business Analysis consulting and training solutions. Adrian is a keen advocate of the analysis profession, and is constantly looking for ways of promoting the value that good analysis can bring.
To find out more about the training and consulting services offered at Blackmetric, please visit www.blackmetric.com
Entitlement is definitely detrimental to a project’s progress. It just leads to a lot of rigidity instead of the flexibility needed by a team to work well together.