985 words.

Reading time:  3 - 5 minutes.

For Every Thousand Hacking at the Leaves of Bad Management, there is One Striking at the Root.

(with a nod towards Henry  David Thoreau.)

 by Dov Gordon

“I’m in the process of looking for a new job,” my friend Randy told me.  Randy is smart, highly educated, possesses a superb character and works for a much admired Israeli company.  Yet his immediate bosses have made his work so frustrating that he wants out.  A real pity.  All because management is hacking at the leaves of corporate ineffectiveness rather than striking at the roots.

“The environment I am in does not nurture growth.  My immediate bosses have a very haphazard work style and it creates a situation where nothing is real.  A Monday deadline is not a Monday deadline and a deadline this week is not a deadline this week.  I rush a project for an *urgent deadline* and then my bosses don’t look at it for a month or two.

“When they finally get around to it, they call me in and ask many detailed, highly intelligent questions.  But by then I’m deep into the next *urgent* project and the first one has been off my mind for weeks.  In the end they anyway redo everything I’ve done…  Many good people have already left.”

“Have you talked to your bosses about these issues?” I asked.

“I can’t speak to him.  Historically everything I have said has been perceived as criticism and he doesn’t take it very well.  I’m fed up.  I’ve had enough.  I am very happy to move on.  As far as I am concerned they can carry on as they wish.  Whatever they need from me I give them in a passive manner.  I bite my lip.  My individuality is completely squashed.  I realize that I won’t change the person.  When you open your mouth nothing changes except that now there is bad feeling out in the open.”

“Notice I said bosses - in the plural.  I work in a small group of five that is part of a unit of about forty people.  I get along better with my boss’s boss and for some things I need to work with him directly.  But he often tells me things before my direct boss finds out.  Of course this makes my direct boss feel sidelined and left out…”

A senior executive learned of problems in the unit so he brought in a new HR person and an industrial psychologist.  You would expect that they would identify the real causes and treat them.  However, instead they do what HR and industrial psychologist do best:  run seminars, trainings and “feel-good” sessions.     

Back to Randy:  “They are running seminars on how to improve the functioning of our unit, including technology transfer among the unit, staff motivation, advancement and achievement on an individual level.  The point is that they are not addressing the real causes of the problem.  At the end of the day, the cause of the problem for me at least, is a specific person and specific way of working.

“They also brought in a motivational speaker who was the first Israeli to climb Mount Everest.  They wanted to make it clear that we are on a definite path to address motivational issues in our unit.  That was very interesting.  But it had no impact on the quality of our work.

“The industrial psychologist talked about open planning where everyone gives input into an open platform.  Each person talks about what they care about and comes back and presents it to the group.  That was a half-day workshop.

“We had these brainstorming sessions during which we were divided up into small subgroups.  The groups meet once a week to formulate some sort of mission statement to address a specific deficiency assigned to it.

“We’ve had three or four meetings.  And we will meet again in full to present to management who will give their feedback as to what can be implemented.  The main problem is that these open groups aren’t open.  The only time we had a truly productive conversation was the day my boss came to the meeting an hour late.”

“In my view these small group meetings aren’t worth anything.  There is no teamwork.  It is a cultural issue. Everyone is unhappy which is really silly, because the caliber of our people is outstanding.  Ten of us are PhD’s and doctors and the best of us are looking to leave.

“We have the money, the status and the human capital.  We should be getting the results yet we’re not.”

DOV GORDON’s CEO THOUGHT-PROVOKER™ SUMMARY:

1.   We often confuse activity with progress.  (Bob Mager.)  In Randy’s unit they are running workshops and work-groups but no one has confronted the managers about the impact they are having on their subordinates.

When looking to improve organizational performance, we generally try to look for systemic causes rather than look for whom to blame.  While Randy blames his bosses, there are surely systemic causes.  Reporting to two bosses might be one example.  The employees can’t fix these bottlenecks via open planning, work groups or whatever the latest HR fad happens to be.

2.   Motivational issues are symptoms of deeper problems.  Address those deeper problems and the motivational issues magically disappear. See our white paper “Stop Trying to Motivate and… Do This Instead.”  Also available in Hebrew.

 3.    Randy’s employer is a huge company.  If the scenario he describes is an exception, it is likely that this department can continue in its dysfunctional ways for years and no one would notice.  However if such behavior is more widespread, this corporate darling will soon begin to suffer.

4.    Where might people in your company be hacking at the leaves of poor management instead of striking at the roots?  Are you twisting yourself into a pretzel to avoid confronting certain key people?  Can you afford to continue?  Wouldn’t you progress faster if you struck at the roots?

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DOV GORDON helps senior executives make better, wiser decisions and quickly get things done.  He is sought after for his perspective and advice on formulating and implementing strategy, developing an innovation culture and cultivating superior team work.  Dov can be reached via his websites www.GordonGroupEC.com and www.IsraeliCEO.com or via email at dovgordon@gmail.com.

Archives of The CEO Thought-Provoker™ are here:  http://www.gordongroupec.com/articles.html

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Dov Gordon helps senior executives at small and mid-sized companies around the world to earn the respect and admiration of their marketplace.  Clients benefit from clarifying their strategies, sharpening their focus, better decision making, improved teamwork and growing into great leaders.

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Executive Coaching.

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