Why Does “Management Crap” Happen? Part III

December 8th, 2008 The author

Pride is the mask of one own’s faults 

Jewish Proverb

In my last entry, I mentioned that politics is one of the culprits behind management crap. Too often time politics get in the way, and we often see the “fruits” of it within a short period of time : unqualified executives warming the seats of important poisitions and making poor decision choices.

Now as humans, granted one of the attributes that we all share in common is our need to learn. And part of learning requires making mistakes, that’s a natural byproduct of our lifelong learning process. And of course, they higher we go up in life, making mistakes naturally becomes costlier.

But another thing I have observed is, the higher we go up, be it whether it’s in our careers or our own lives, the harder it gets for us to admit our faults. I have seen this happen too many times in my workplace, especially among my supervisor and managers.

I have always wondered -

Why is it so hard for someone to say sorry for something?

Why is it so difficult to admit it was your mistake?

Is there some unwritten rule that says apologizing makes you look weaker?  Okay maybe you might hang you head low in shame for a couple of days, but so what? Humbly accepting your mistake with sincere humility actually can help improve the situation because people have already AKNOWLEDGED the problem and it’s time to move beyond the issue and concerntrate on finding what to do next.

I say this method works because I’ve gone through it myself. I remember being a project manager for one of my IT network projects, we had done a fanstastic job with implementing the network system, but we missed out on a small part, the installation of the network printers. Rather than pointing who is to be blame for it, I immediately took up to responsibility and told my management “okay so we made a mistake, we overlooked the printer, what do we do now? How do we recitify this?… How do we move forward from here?”

Although management was a little unhappy about that incident, coming clean with the error and pressing to move on really helped the whole project. Admitting to the client we overlooked the printer and promising to rectifiy it immediately helped pacify the client and we could move on. 

Sadly, most executives are too proud to admit their mistakes. They’re too proud to say “okay we messed up, what do we do from here, what contigency plans can we take?”  

Rather what do most executive do? They look for scapegoats, someone to shoulder the blame for them. They complain about how the other party has not been working properly with the team, or they complain about the individual not pulling his weight blah blah blah.

Someone else, just not me is their attitude

True, there are instances where it’s really the other party’s mistake, but most often than not, whether it’s someone else’s mistake or fault, very few will actually own up and try to stir the team. In a crude way, when shit hits the fan, no one wants to be near it.

Instead who’s to shoulder all this? Indirectly it’ll be the lowly powerless employees. Suddenly just because of somebody else’s error and refusal to bite the bullet, lowly employees get pressed to the wall ; they’re forced to complete their deadlines, they’re forced to stay back late, they’re forced to produce flawless work in a ridicioulous time frame. 

Management’s mistake, no one takes the blame, lowly employees take the shit.

If only we had senior managers who had the balls to admit where they’ve gone wrong and just carry the team back to the original goal, now that would truly be a real leader…

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Why Does Management Crap Happen? Part II

December 6th, 2008 The author

It is no use saying “we are doing our best”. You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary

Winston Churchill

That quote above sums up a great deal what most management don’t do.

Doing what is necessary

I left off my last post with the thought that the reason management crap happens is simply because it’s seats are occupied by crappy people.

I’m learning this new term about client defination at my company. I don’t know whether it’s a coined or generic term, but consultants generally prefer to work with people whom are identified as drivers. This exclusive term is usually reserved for project sponsors, typically those who are sitting in upper management who have a considerable amount of influence on a project. Working with management drivers can really assist in ensuring a successful project delivery.

However not everyone is a driver, and definitely not everyone operates on such principles.  If you ask me, most management crap stems from a very simple cause, lack of the right people on top. In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins addresses this clearly. In order to build a great company, Collins asserts that top management should “get the right people on the bus to sit at the right places”, meaning getting the right people to do the right things.

It’s a rudimentary concept to be honest, it’s definitely not something novel or wrapped with an shroud of complexity.  Get the right people to do the right things. But too often that doesn’t happen now does it?

Why?

Well because of something which I’ve always loathed ever since I entered the corporate world : Politics.

If I could some up office politics in a sentence it would be this : It’s good (assuming it favours you) for you , it’s bad for the business.

We all know it, yet it’s so rampant in our working cultures today. We end up hiring 2nd grade executives because of preferential treatment, and ignoring the 1st class well-suited-for-the-position individual. I can never understand exactly why management does this, (hire somebody less qualified for the job), except maybe the only justification they can offer is “I am comfortable working with him”. So instead of getting the right people on the right bus to sit in the right seats, we end up getting wrong people to sit in seats not meant for them.

And so the bus journey goes on.  Using the analogy of the stinking flower I mentioned in Part I, the foul scent is not detected until the bus is well down the road. By then, problems are already cracking up and staring to show around, yet due to pride and ego, top management refuses to admit and be humble about it.

Which brings us to Part III of Why Management Crap Happens.

More humility, pride and ego in Part III.

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Why Does Management Crap Happen?” Part I

December 4th, 2008 The author

This is not a ranting about my work. although I must admit that I got the inspiration to write this based on my observations at work over the last few weeks.

As I write this, yes my project, like many other “thousands” I hear from my fellow consulting colleagues is in a mess. And because we carry the immaculate title “CONSULTANT”, we’re supposed to be the experts in fixing things and cleaning messes.

Heh, I sometimes think the word “professional cleaners” or “waste disposal experts” would be perfect monikers for Consultants, because in essence that’s what we are sometimes.

But I don’t want to talk about “10 top ways to clean Management’s Problems” or expound on ” Best practices for handling Management Crap”. I want to bypass the immaculate an inmortal consultants and go directly to the souce

“Why does Management Crap happen in the first place”

I will admit, I’ve only been slighly more than 2 years in the workplace. While I may sound callow with my thoughts, I feel I must still try to explain this topic. At least it’ll be refreshing to hear this from a junior employee. :P

How does crap come in the first place? Take any projects that you know; why is there so much problem when it comes to a project? I honestly do not know whether some of my colleagues take time to reflect on this; I’m pretty sure majority would just go with the flow and treat it as part of “the project life cycle”.

But is it really? Granted every project has it sets of challenges, but crap is different from a challenge. A challenge is a situation where it has the potential to impede the project, or the problem itself is in it’s infancy stages.

Crap on the other hand is the result of mismanagement, poor decision making and judgement, and a lack of governance. Crap is the corollary of the set of challenges that arises and is poorly addressed and manage.  The unique attribute about crap is that it only flourishes after a certain period of time. It’s not felt or known until then. You could liken crap to a smelly flower. So long the foul-smelling flower doesn’t bloom, you can’t detect it’s stench, even though you do know it’s the type of flower which will produce a foul scent when it blooms. Rather than “nipping the bud”, you choose to ignore it.

“Ahh it hasn’t still bloomed yet”

“Maybe it won’t bloom, so why worry?”

“We’ll nip the bud later” (but that later doesn’t come)

One of my senior project executives from my previous company once made this observing comment

“We’re operating in a reactive culture, we should instead be operating in a proactive culture”

Words of wisdom? Bah, what if I told you that that “sage” seem-like observation is actually in one of the most famous best-selling self-help books in the market?

Don’t believe me? Go ahead and google Habit # 1 in the 7 habits of Highly effective people

What really irks me the most, is not so much that people make mistakes. Like I said, every project has it’s challenges; with almost absolute certainty, given the fact that we co-exists with others in our environment, there is bound to be problems in every project.

However the the problem that really gets to me is the notion that some people never learn.  It’s very disheartening in some ways to know that these people who make these mistakes (of overlooking potential land mines,  excercising poor judgement, and at times not behaving as a project sponsor or director) are well beyond their forties. These are seasoned individuals who have been in the working world long enough to know  how projects work, the potential pitfalls in a project.

I might be demonstrating my “callowness” when I say this, but I personally believe that every project has a substantial chance of being properly implemented and executed, given the right “conditions”.

And when I say conditions, I am not referring to an “idllyic ” scenario. I’m well aware the world is flawed, or in some situations, overtly flawed. But I believe in the power of the individual.  In fact, my experience in many projects, if anything, has strengthened my belief in the power of the individual.

But that’s where the “crap” begins in the first place, in the minds, souls and bodies of these “crap” individuals.

More on this in part II

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