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"Stockholm Syndrome" in project execution and management?
Here is an other (difficult?) question.
What do you think on the Stockholm Syndrome in project execution and management? Did you ever experience or observed it? Did you ever try to help?
The Stockholm Syndrome is the behavior of kidnap victims who become sympathetic to their captors. The name derives from a hostage incident in Stockholm where at the end of six days of captivity in a bank, some kidnap victims actually resisted rescue attempts.
In project execution and management is obviously a metaphor for describing the behavior of some project team members during the delivery, tipically at customer’s site, who tend to weaken their link to their own company and become sympathetic to the customer’s best interest, neglecting their obligations to their company.
This is perhaps a subtle topic with much ambiguities but I would like share some thoughs.
Thanks, D.
Good Answers (5)
Wolfgang R
Dipl.Ing. (MSc), PMP; Specialized in Project and Requirements Management for the Telecommunications Industry (OSS/BSS).
Best Answers in: Project Management (3), Product Design (2)
Yes, I observed it several times. Even in my last project, resulting in quitting and a change to the client company of one colleague (and others thinking about). However, the Stockholm Syndrome is pretty much a pure negativ outcome, but with the intention to survive. It is an escape from the real situation. If a project member wants to get away from his own company, it may be an indicator that something is wrong there already.
From my point of view it is beneficial to learn the client to know, but there must be kept a certain distance. If this distance gets lost, the project member is not adding value to the project any more. In such a situation the best would be to exchange him/her, if possible. The client might insist to keep him in his position as he is working more for the client now, but the role he played and the intended mediation between the client and the supplier will not work any more. So, it would be really best to give this position to somebody who is already involved in the project and has sufficient insight to be able to mediate again.
Wolfgang
Alan C
Group Managing Director of PML
Best Answers in: Project Management (2), Staffing and Recruiting (1), Business Analytics (1), Change Management (1), Planning (1), Manufacturing (1), Distribution (1), Enterprise Software (1)
Hi Dario
I have actually seen the reverse of this many times - when clients have almost fallen in love with the idol they are give in the shape of a project manager or business analyst.
Note that this is specifically in the area of project initiation - such as a new SAP deployment or a Hyperion install.
I have actually seen one client go from needing five quad UNIX servers to a plethora of Superdomes and half the HDS inventory in the country.
So it cuts both ways as I am sure you will agree.
I have one client using my business process discovery software as it keeps the analysts and business users away from each other - but this is for entirely different reasons.
Links:
I have dealt with a few projects where we (I) did amend the project details to help accomodate the end user client expectations and needs.
In my mind if these were not done and if we had bulldozed the project through to its logical conclusion (based on the original design) the end result would have been greatly unappreciated by the constituents leaving a lot of unhappy people behind with zero or negative good will.
Riccardo S
Project Manager at EMC Computer System
Best Answers in: Career Management (2), Education and Schools (1), Certification and Licenses (1)
i experienced this kind of attitude in many collegues who were working for years at customer sites: in these cases the persons lost their focus on company goals and they became "customer" theirself.
This a very difficult situation to handle just because they still know things customer shouldn't and because it is almost impossible to manage the right level of communication (i know person who used externail email address to convey the information they shouldn't).
On the other hand it is difficult to break this relationship because the customer most of the time rely on these figures and subordinate the business relations to these other relations, so the company can't do a lot.
Many times i saw these persons being employed by the customer after a while.
Clarification added 6 months ago:
It is much more common in body-rental or outsourcing than in projetcs (except for very, very long ones)
I have just read the 6 answers to your question and my jaw dropped with disbelieve. Most of the answers seem to be based on an assumption that the client is your enemy! Why should it be negative if the supplier’s staff based on the client’s premises liked and understood the customer’s needs? It is their professional duty to understand and express back to you what the customer’s needs are and how are they changing so that you can respond accordingly by modifying your services and products to suit them. Folks, is your relationship with the clients symbiotic or parasitic?
And why should your staff based on client site not like the client where they spend a lot of their time? Is your HR objective to make your employee miserable? And why should good integration into the client, being “one of the guys” mean disloyalty to “the mother ship” unless the suppler is in extortion business?
If your own company is a good one to work for, if you make sure they your staff is still a part of your company irrespective were they work, and that they have a career within your company, if you listen to them telling you what both they and the customer wants and/or needs (sometimes “want” and “need” are not the same), what has changed over the time, if your culture is that of respecting and valuing your customers and if you respond with actions rather than slogans, i.e. make appropriate changes rather than just talk about it then everybody will feel successful in the end.
Your staff has not been kidnapped by a client, you have send them there and hopefully to deliver something beneficial to the client! And most people have an instinctive feeling of what is right, what is wrong, what is unethical and how they want to be treated when they are customers.
I have worked for consultancies and as a freelance consultant for over 15 years now, I am almost always working on client’s site and I have had a fair amount of repeated work purely and solely because I my work has been valued highly by the clients. I never lost the identity of who I am and who do I work for but I always considered it my professional duty to do as good a job as possible for the client who pays for my services. After companies exist to make profit and all profits come from the customers so they should never be seen as kidnapers or other form of criminals. Yes the services/products must have profit margins and not all clients are worth having but this is your management responsibility for define and implement your strategy to ensure this and to find the right customers. Yes, there are sometimes conflicts but mostly they are essentially between the short term versus long term benefits but with good will, honesty, trust earned through past performance and professional attitudes compromises can be reached and in such negotiations the knowledge and the staff based on client’s site and the credence they build up makes them invaluable.
PS one of the respondents wrote that a client is using his “business process discovery software as it keeps the analysts and business users away from each other” which almost made me to fall of my chair! Although this is a slightly different subject the attitude seem to be indicative of the adversarial attitudes. Sometimes I do not really know whether to laugh or cry…
More Answers (3)
Roy W
Director of Operations at RAVE LLC
Best Answers in: Engineering (3), Regulation and Compliance (1), Government Policy (1), Staffing and Recruiting (1), Manufacturing (1), Project Management (1), Quality Management and Standards (1), Positioning (1)
This is a classic issue in service organizations, applications groups, install and qual teams, etc. Situations where the employee(s) is/are stationed at the customer site for extended periods. Communication, training and retraining, teambuilding, and other ways of engaging the remote workers are helpful. But some extent of identification with the customer is actually desirable and beneficial in a lot of cases -- they are the ambassador to and voice of the customer, and the liaison back to the company. Deployed well, this can provide much more information than other structures. If anyone has a good systems for maximizing this, it would be great to learn more.
I have seen this during a number of different technology rollouts, and usually there are a spectrum of reasons when this occurs.
A few that I always look out for are 1) "The complainer" Sometimes you have some people working with a customer that just can't manage any kind of change at all. 2) "Time warps" These folks like to say "Back when I was at 'Old employer' we used to do this.." 3) "Vested Interest" This is usually an person who thinks the change will make them redundant.
I have found that identifying the personality types and making sure our implementation staff knows how to spot them goes a long way in helping understand and identify unexpected resistance.
If your staff also has a direct line to the key personnel at the companies you are supporting, and by key I mean someone who can tell everyone to shape up an get with the program, that helps great deal too.
It's kind of funny in some respects. Change is tough for just about everyone on some level, and when you have your staff sitting with someone else's staff for long periods, the emotions tend to rub off on people.
Ron K
Experienced Global Information Technology Professional
Best Answers in: Business Analytics (1), Project Management (1)
This happens to many individuals more often than folks would care to look into. The key is strong ties, meetings, deliverables to the mother ship if you will. Once people are left to be to autonomous the tendency is to become "one of the guys" and especially in outsource situations it can be deadly by virtue of failed loyalties and loose lips regarding margin and proprietary matters.