Every organization would like to build a high performance stand-out culture, but these ten non-strategic activities are barriers that must be overcome.
They are practised by most organizations and produce very little. They consume precious time and suck up emotional energy.
1. Committee Work. How many Committees do you have working on stuff? What would happen if you reduced the number by 50% and empowered folks to make a decision and get on with execution? Committees are charged with the responsibility of coming up with recommendations that satisfy everyone. Often these decisions take a long time to reach, they are watered-down and produce forgettable results.
2. Hyper-analysis. Analysis can paralyze an organization and is a symptom of being afraid to make a call. Don’t over analyze. Do the amount of study that is consistent with the decision to be made. A $10 Million decision will need more work than a $100K one.
3. Seeking The Last 5% of Perfection. Read this as trying to get it perfect. Crazy quest. Will never happen. Get it “just about right” and execute flawlessly. Keep your feet moving.
4. Co-ordinating. What VALUE is there in this? When teamwork fails or systems are deficient, we need a coordinator? Rubbish!
5. Consensus Building. You can’t satisfy everyone. Make the call. A consensus solution is generally one that has “rounded corners” to satisfy everyone and loses its originality.
6. Following Rules. WOW! A great way to stultify creativity and innovation. Sure, some rules are necessary. But some are also “dumb”. What if you reduced the number of rules by 50% over the next 30 days? Do you think it would open up the possibilities for people to do NEW THINGS?
7. Punishing Failure. Another great way to beat innovation out of a person. If you’re not failing you’re not moving forward. Failing is a necessary component of success. Honor failure and those who deliver it.
8. Giving Orders. Managers do it. Change Leaders don’t. Do you really believe people won’t do the right thing? If not, you haven’t prepared them. They haven’t grown. You have failed. Learn from it.
9. Benchmarking. Sure, this approach may help you improve your performance but copying will never make you remarkable, unforgettable or give you a competitive advantage. Consider “best in class” as the highest bar to BE DiFFERENT from. If you stop at the best you will be like every other organization in the herd – boring and common.
10. Doing What The Job Description Says. Don’t do what is right; stick to your job responsibilities. “It’s not my job”. “I’ll pass you over to Customer Care”. Customers love this one don’t they? Screw the formal job description. We need people to spot opportunities and do whatever it takes to create maniacal raving fans EVEN if it means going beyond their formal job limits. We do want people to step out don’t we?
This list of ten is a product of the past. It represents a control management culture.
Stand-out organizations today find a way to break away from as many of these as they can as quickly as possible.
Do you have the jam to do it?
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