The U.S.’s adaptation of The Office is a popular series that features many bosses trying to lead a group of workers. Throughout the series, each boss employs a series of supervisory techniques in order to accomplish this. Some of the techniques are successful, while others fail miserably. While some leaders on the show are more traditional and others try to step out of the mold, they all experiment until they find their comfort zone. Toward the end of the series, Andy Bernard becomes the boss, using a series of disconnected supervisory techniques in hopes of gaining the respect of his employees.
In The Office’s 8th season, “The Incentive”, Andy attempts to use two supervisory techniques: friendship and incentive . Friendship does not work. Andy’s supervisor implores Andy to push the employees; Andy does so by offering them respect, expecting mutual respect and hard-work in return. What he receives is rudeness and laziness. Dwight insults Andy, acting disrespectful in front of the other workers. The employees simply do not see him as the type to boss them around. According to Andrew DuBrin’s “Leadership: Research Findings, Practice, and Skills”, this is a supervisory technique that typically only works after respect has been established (2012). Not wanting to be mean, Andy used his second technique: an incentive. It is a trick he learned from one of his professor’s textbooks (2011). For every sale the employees make, they earn points. The points earn them prizes. While most of the prizes are lackluster, the ultimate prize allows them to choose a tattoo that Andy will permanently put on his body. Without hesitation the team gets to work and by the end of the episode, Andy has a new tattoo. While viewers initially think his method has backfired because the employees do not seem to respect him in the slightest, Pam has actually given him a tattoo that pays homage to his treasured nickname, showing that perhaps Dubrin does not know everything about supervisory techniques, or friendship.
A third supervisory technique Andy uses begin in an episode called “The Boat” and lasts for most of the 9th season. Stricken with what we can only guess is a midlife crisis after receiving some bad news about his family, Andy begins selling everything except the family’s boat. He uses the boat to sale to the Caribbean for one last cruise, effectively leaving the office without any leadership at all . According to DuBrin, this is a Laissez-Faire approach to supervising (2012). Without a boss, the employees of the office continue to work as they have been for several years now. They do not require the direction of a supervisor. Traditionally, in laissez-faire approaches to management, the manager will take the time to delegate the responsibility to employees himself, or herself, in order to ensure things run smoothly (2012). Typically, if this is not done, the workplace falls apart. Fortunately for Andy, because the employees were familiar with their jobs already, this was not necessary.
As a supervisor I would not have simply left my workplace and gone on a sabbatical to the Caribbean. It is lucky that the office did not fall apart in Andy’s absence, though his presence did not ever seem like a vital requirement, but the fact that he was not reprimanded during his absence is nothing short of a miracle. An enormous company depended on him to keep a successful branch running smoothly and it was nothing short of irresponsible to flee. The appropriate action would have been to stay until a replacement was found, or quit. However, I can understand Andy’s actions. His father had just fled the country with a mistress and he was stressed. While he was stressed during his experimentations with incentives, this was different; his family was falling apart. Stress and decision making are dependent upon the individual: stress either sharpens or blurs the individual’s capacity to make a decision. In this case it blurred Andy’s decisiveness and he made a very poor decision. Even though the office ran just as smoothly, if not better, in his absence the fact remains that abandoning a managerial position is an unacceptable supervisory technique. While it can be classified as laissez-faire, it is extreme .
The supervisory trait Andy used that I relate to most is incentive. I am human, and like most humans I like setting goals and working toward them. If goals are set for me, the satisfaction is no different. Whether it was earning praise from the teacher in grade school, receiving Honor Roll certification in middle school, or Employee of the Month at my job, incentives help me reach my goals. These incentives helped me be a better student as well as a better employee; I have experienced firsthand how powerful an incentive can be on the mind. However, this is a textbook technique and sometimes, as Andy witnessed, it fails. Andy used incentives because he learned it in a textbook written by one of his old professors at Cornell. Unfortunately the book did not provide an outline stating “how far is too far” when it comes to incentives, which led to Andy offering his body as the office’s tattooing canvas. IN a scene later in the episode, Andy is seen calling his professor, asking if he has written a book on how to un-motivate employees. While textbooks are an important resource, it is more important to use common sense.
In sum, Andy meant well with two of his supervisory techniques and was under stress with the third. He was a relatively sufficient supervisor who, in the beginning, had good intention. As the series progressed, he devolved as a leader. It is a story many supervisors should pay attention to. Andy began with a lot of enthusiasm for his job and his employees but the work took its tool and eventually he gave up; supervisors simply cannot give up. Employees are always looking to them for leadership, guidance, and motivation.
References
DuBrin, A. (2012). Leadership: Research Findings, Practice, and Skills. Independence: Cengage Learning.
Lieberstein, P. (2011, September 29). The Incentive. (E. N. Harris, Performer) The Office.
Sterling, D. (2012, November 8). The Boat. (E. Harris, & J. Krasinski, Performers) The Office.
