Pressure is often used as a tool to make people meet the deadlines. It is expected to ensure the assigned task done in time. But the truth is it is less likely to give the desired result, especially in the modern day setting where people value liberty more than anything. Scenario was different in the past. Almost every organization functioned through a control mechanism. Whether it was a school, college, factory, industry or even a family, the authority often exercised a massive control over its subordinate bodies or units. But today’s buzz word is ‘facilitation.’ Control mechanism should have been out of place but, sadly, it is still in practice in many sectors.
Pressure of any kind sends negative vibes into our brains, and is most likely to work in the reverse gear. Rather than stimulating us to work, it inseminates negative feelings in us and kills our spirit to make any efforts. Instead of taking us closer to administrative authorities, it distances us from them. As a result, people gradually turn less sincere in their duties and begin taking up chances in absence of the authority. And the outcome of this is often negative.
A positive reward, on the other hand, can do some wonders. A few words of praise and a timely appreciation for achievement, and a kind of consideration for occasional human errors are likely to motivate individuals to strive for excelling in their endeavors. It helps build up an environment of trust between the two parties—authority and its subordinates. This trust, in turn, encourages the latter to work better and come up with much improved performances. A negative enforcement, to the contrary, triggers fear in people instead of motivating them. And it’s this fear of spoiling things which worsens their performances oftentimes.
Despite the goodness of praise and rewards, most of organizational “ethics” of our times are guided by pressure strategy. Pressure is used as a major tool to ensure positive outcomes in great many of educational and business organizations. In most schools and colleges, students are often threatened and punished by their teachers or administrators even for simple human errors. We often hear about children beaten black and blue for some silly mistakes like forgetting books and notebooks or missing their morning assemblies. We fail to acknowledge that such inhuman acts never help in bringing changes in the children’s behavior. Reminding them of the negative consequences of their mistakes can be much better in our efforts to transform them into good characters.
Pressure mechanism is widespread in our offices and workplaces. Even though we live in a changed scenario of human resource management principles, our working culture is more or less the same. Most of our offices still function through a too conventional and rigid hierarchical system, where pressure is preferred over motivational tools. There have been hardly any innovations in the working patterns over the years.
The idea of ‘facilitation’ is still a far cry in the workplaces. To add to the woes, our evaluation system is faulty. We have a negative evaluation system, one that emphasizes on what wrong one has done, rather than a number of things that s/he might have done right. For years, we have been relying heavily on this faulty system.
Pressure mechanism is rooted in the institution of family too. Even educated and the most advanced urban families are no more an exception to this trend. Children are often chided for not being able to give the expected outcome in their studies. They are never consoled during their bad times when they fail to stand up to the expectations of their parents. Rather they are warned and punished. This sort of response from parents disheartens the children, further weakening them psychologically. In many cases, it leads to a negative psychological growth in them, giving rise to a number of apparent aberrations and even delinquency. Such aberrations sometimes have a disastrous effect in their growth with the end result of psychologically impaired adult lives.
It is therefore a high time we gave up pressure mechanism in all sectors of our lives. It is rather a time for celebrating the benefits of positive enforcement.
The writer teaches English at Pentagon International College
durga_2004@hotmail.com
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