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.
