Stuck between mediocrity and excellence

There is a word that becomes dangerous when declared enough times in a business or organization.  That word is "should." "Well... the process should be to notify our customer, but I've got too many things on my plate."  "We should be monitoring our inventory levels, but our systems don't allow us to get at that information quickly."  "Turnover really should not be this high. We're hiring the wrong people."  The reason that the word "should" is dangerous is because, like in the 3 statements above, an excuse typically follows.  Enough shoulds will equal a lot of excuses.  A lot of excuses equals organizational inaction.  Organizational inaction leads to a culture of purgatory.  Eliminate the word should from your vocabulary.  Replace it with "must" or "can" or "will".   Your organization will begin to move from inaction to action which will lead to the right kind of growt...

The problem with bad bosses is that they spawn more bad bosses.  Just as Dr. Evil created a Mini-Me -- a bad boss will create many  protégés.  They will then go on to create more bad spawn and the compound effect begins to take over.  Or does it?  The only reason bad bosses end up procreating is because they are in an environment that allows it.  Just as mold grows and thrives in dark, damp places -- bad bosses will grow and thrive in environments that promote bullies, narcissists, and political animals .  The simple reason is that all of the people trying to move UP the ladder think that that's the way that they need to be.  The worst part of the story is that bad bosses don't even know they are bad and companies don't even realize that this is the type of environment they foster.  It's why there are so many books on organizational health and leadership.  The gap between what it really is and what it should be is enorm...

More times than not, when you start a project or new job in a management capacity you don't get to pick your team members.  Depending on what level you are, you may actually get team members assigned to you without your say.  It can be frustrating. Deep down, you know that you need to play with the cards that you've been dealt.  It becomes even more frustrating because you can't follow Jim Collins' rule of getting the wrong people off the bus to become great .  In my experience, you'll know within a few seconds whether you've inherited a good team member or bad one.  Part of my problem - if you want to call it that - is that I am quick to judge. The other reason is that I ask myself two questions about the person during a 10 second assessment.  (I guess that's really one reason).  Question 1: Is this person open to a different way of thinking?  Many times, you inherit people that already think they know everything about everyt...

When good people either leave or are asked to leave the company, one of the things you'll commonly hear is,  "Well... he (or she) was one of the good ones..." It's like people just heard that a colleague didn't pull through after an accident or didn't survive a war.  When you start to hear the quote more often than not, you begin to wonder what's really going on.  Good people join and leave companies all of the time and you would hope that they leave to move on to bigger and better things.  But maybe that's not really the case.  If all an organization does is churn and burn out good people, you have to wonder if it's the people or if it's the culture of the organization.  If it's the culture, you're eventually going to run out of good people, right?   When you start hearing people talking of employee departures like the opening to a memorial service, take a hard look at the culture of the organization.  For the ones tha...

A general rule is that for every pocket of excellence in an organization there will be a corresponding pocket of mediocrity.  If your company is great at sales and marketing, then it's probably not so great at operations.  Just like people have strengths and weaknesses, organizations have not only core competencies, but competencies that could be categorized as "needs improvement." To understand whether you work in either a pocket of excellence or one of mediocrity take a good look at the leaders in the company. Is it a team of people with complimentary skill sets?  Or is everyone a better clone of the other?  Take a look at the business model. Basic, I know. But if the only people you see running the organization are "sales people" without any deep content, you have a pretty good idea of what the organization thinks its pocket of excellence is.  Alternatively, if your current leader recently came from IT, or he or she came from operations, then you ...

When you work in an organization that historically lacks accountability for following processes, you can get thrown for a loop when processes are all of a sudden enforced.  It is easy to say that leaders and managers need to hold people accountable to the processes that matter.  Accountability leads to consistency.  Consistency leads to reliability.  However, when the inmates have run the asylum for a while, accountability is going to meet resistance head on. As much as people want to follow a process, they also want their autonomy too. Once everyone decides they want to institute and enforce a process, that autonomy is taken away.  And now instead of inmates running the asylum to get things done, we end up in complete organizational standstill.  Managers try to enforce new processes. Everybody else is figuring out ways to get around the processes because that's how to get things done.  Before you decide to institute a culture of pr...

Who you tryin' to get crazy with ese? Don't you know I'm loco? Cypress Hill - Insane In The Membrane    Sometimes the only way to deal with people you think are crazy is join them in the craziness.  The one thing about company culture is that you can't fight it.  The more you fight it, the more of an outcast you become. It's draining.  Fighting it can become toxic. Toxicity becomes negativity. Negativity can lead to ostracism.  If you think that everyone around you is nuts, guess what? You are probably the crazy one.  And nobody likes to be around the crazy people -- the ones that just.don't.get.it.  Therefore it's decision time. Decide if you want to join in and pledge, or keep your head down and waste time in the quagmire.  The choice is yours. 

A few definitions.  cult -  1. a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object. culture - 1. (third bullet) the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group. tribe - 1. a social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognized leader. I've worked for a couple of smaller professional services firms and have experienced a dichotomy. In the first company, the "culture" was very "cult-like." The office represented and revolved around a particular figure. In the second, the "culture" is ambiguous. In fact, I'm not even sure if one exists-- there might actually be specific pockets of culture.  There's the owner and then there's everyone else.  It follows the Les McKeown ...

Organizations reorganize once every few years. Sometimes it's a regime change that instigates it. Maybe the founder of the company or office wants to shake things up. Many times Consultants will come in and recommend that changes need to occur for an organization to be more effective, agile, innovative, or efficient.  More often than not, it's a sticks and boxes exercise. Just as it's easier for me to change the folder structure on my computer - it's just as easy to move sticks and boxes around on an organizational chart in PowerPoint or Visio. Changing  behavior within the organization  so that the intent of the reorganization is realized is an entirely different story. Every organizational change starts with passion, optimism that changes are afoot, and the intention of change for the better. The majority of organizational changes end up in people reverting back to the behavior that got them to where they are-- playing a game of office politics and by rule...