The Management Solution - Part 2

But when things get really messy for a business today, you know that at some point some idiot is going to raise his hand in a meeting and suggest that you survey your clients and suppliers.

Because there is no idiocy like the kind that thinks that other companies should be responsible for diagnosing what your company is doing wrong. Right?

Wrong! Your company makes a product or service. I’m sorry to say that this also means that your company also has to internally understand what they might be doing wrong in making the product or delivering the service. It may seem harsh to say, but if making windshield washer wipers is your company, then you should really be an expert on windshield washer wipers or you should get out of the business. Now. (Maybe you could be spend a few years washing cars to study up and then make a comeback?)

Your clients and suppliers have their own internal dysfunction to deal with (trust me). They can hardly be expected to know what you’re doing wrong in your Monday meetings, and they have precious little impetus to fix you even if they do know what’s wrong.

Wait a minute - this really isn't harsh at all. It's reality. What would be so wrong about expecting the company itself to be responsible for diagnosing the problem. "We're too close to the problem." Right. In most cases, you've been banging your head into it for some time now. How about looking in the mirror and identifying the shape of the dent in your forehead?

Could that be a better step than putting together a 50-question survey for your clients to tell you what you've been slamming your head into?

The Management Solution - Part 1

Honestly – WHERE THE HELL ARE ALL THE MANAGERS?

Now we don’t mean that there are not enough of them, but they always seem to be off doing non-managerial things in most companies today (probably due to the fact that there are 20+ people on each secretary’s desk and everyone has to type and file now). When they are not asking lower-level employees to manage themselves (“Why don’t you fill out this annual performance evaluation form, and then shoot it to me and I’ll just review it...”) then the management is trying to get inside of the heads of their employees in some odd and ineffective way (“Let’s have a 2-hour meeting about what kind of inspirational form core boards to put up around the office – I like the one that says ‘Teamwork Works!’ I think that one is really needed in accounting.”).

Urgent note to Managers:
Stop scheduling pizza lunches to talk about “fun” topics.

Yes, I am actively serious. These semi-prison style lunches are not an effective way to get people to think a certain way. It is entirely possible that we will soon discover a translation of the Old Testament in which Satan misled Adam and Eve by scheduling a pizza lunches with them.

The Process Solution

Something not working? Well then - Put a process in place! And when that doesn’t work add more processes and METRICS.

Generally used to address areas where proper management would have done the job in the past, it is thought that having a clearly defined process allows each employee to manage themselves, and therefore do their manager’s job. Then the manager’s time is freed up to sit in their office and dream up more quality control processes to catch the errors in their team’s work (i.e., the errors that the manager is not catching because they are in the office working on process flows). But more on that in the next chapter...

It’s not that paying attention to the processes is a bad thing. It’s just that most processes seem to be “necessary” due to a simple lack of accountability. "I thought you were going to do this. You didn't do it. We will now have a PROCESS to follow." Why not just have the person do it?

The Technology "Solution"

If things are not working correctly, maybe a consolidation of data and technology solutions that support the enterprise will get things straightened out – right?

Well, no actually. Adding technology can improve the speed at which things get dysfunctional, but don’t be fooled into thinking that anything will get any better.

At the end of the day (WARNING - CORPORATE-SPEAK HAS BEEN SPOTTED), technology has probably caused more conflicts than solved them in today’s companies, because of the shift in work responsibility that occurred with the debut of the personal computer.

In the olden days, middle management was not a pretty place, but it was a good place for your average employees to coast along and therefore was a considerable portion of the payroll at many companies. However, the onset of the PC swept this segment of the company out the door (or perhaps up into the management suite), while shoving the number crunching work down to the secretaries (who became known as administrative assistants because they had to learn spreadsheet and PowerPoint software, and stop taking dictation).

Some companies have never really realized that this change was a profound one. The secretarial pool (often called the typing pool) that formerly handled menial tasks that seldom effected the enterprise and so was low-prestige and low-paid, has seemingly overnight become responsible for handling crucial data that determines the future of the enterprise, while remaining low-prestige and low-paid. And with almost nary a complaint!

Diagnosing the Problem

The first question to answer would logically be: “Does my organization have a problem?”

Before we go any further, just accept it. Seriously. You have a problem if any of the following are commonplace at your company:

• You have meetings to determine ways to save money, while indulging $300 lunches for executives, and spending vast amounts of money trying to get employees to “think about new ways to stretch their budget dollars”.
• You have administrative assistants who support over 30 people.
• You use 360 degree feedback to determine if your employees are doing their jobs. (Wasn't that the manager's job to determine that? When did managers stop being responsible for knowing how their direct reports are doing? Now it's all evaluation by committee...)
• Your meetings are unable to begin or end on time.
• Employees are unable to report to work on time.
• A person with a full year’s experience on your payroll is considered an “old hand”.
• Your company's IT group decides to review all software on their computers for a security audit (MS messenger included - "Is this relevant to our business?") and asks for you to perform it.
• Feel free to continue adding your own examples in the comments... We could go on all day here...

Why So Upset?

It doesn’t take a genius to see evidence that something is wrong with Corporate America. Profits, share prices and competition from local and overseas have pushed most companies and their employees to the point of physical and mental breakdown.

Maybe Management has felt that the Workers challenged them too much when unions came into theior own (a debatable argument, in our opinion), but there can be no doubt that Management completely turned their backs on the Workers in the down-sizing/right-sizing of the late last century. Wall Street Analysts and shareholders have become more important to the modern enterprise than the people who make and deliver the products and services that are the lifeblood of the modern company. It is a disjointed, narrow-focus view of business that evidences a dangerous lack of connection between the lower and upper levels in most companies.

In the plainest terms, the average CEO has no idea what it takes to produce the products or services that create his salary.

The question is: Why? And why does it look set to continue? And where is our outrage?

Where is the revolution? Or the reset button?

First Post

Well - here goes nothing...

Welcome to the blog. We hope it is as interesting for you to read as it was mindless and tedious for us to live though.

Enjoy.