Today I was trying to explain why organisations sometimes almost compell their managers to do stupid things - or certainly why it might appear that way to people further down the chain.

1. The glance analysis - the solution to someone else’s problem can often seem obvious. That can be due to the person not seeing the wood for the trees - but also can be from not really taking the time to understand local conditions before passing judgement.

I once had to endure a conversation from a person from Melbourne (nothing against people from Melbourne, on the whole I have found them very nice…). He was seeking to make some changes to the way an industry association operated in WA - and make a takeover bid for all the other related organisations in WA - and run it all from 3000 miles away. He then also proceeded to tell us how little we knew about how to run such an organisation. It was one of the first dinners I’ve been to where 4 or 5 normally mild mannered people were ready to belt someone they have never met before.

2. The flick pass - email management (or mis-management) can allow for easy flick pass of a task (generally with a comment attached adding to the workload). People in management roles are often so time poor that the constant barrage of email encourages sending an email onto someone else rather than stopping the email and really thinking about whether the task should be done. Whilst it may not win you friends, sometimes it is worth asking the question of the sender, “If I simply couldn’t get to this due to other commitments, what would be the downside?”. Or send them a quote for an hour of your time….

3 Conflicting goals - ever wondered what is the real goal the firm is interested in? Generally there is a terrible conflict between organisation goals eg. growth versus profit now…

So, what do you think? Add a comment below about some of the dumb things you have seen organisations do to their people (or their customers…)

It is no surprise that in business the greatest pressure is - of course - on the boss. Whilst staff enjoy up to 14 days per year paid sick leave with 4 weeks annual leave, and cumulative long service leave, the poor business owner who has their house on the line often is unable to take a sick day, rarely gets a holiday and certainly gets little choice when to be able to manage this. However, being a “super human” boss isn’t the path to prosperity - just the path to a heart attack.

So here are some tips to get the organisational management and people structure right.

Today’s generation is about a flat management structure, the flatter the better. A meritoracy, where position is based on performance. Bullsh!t seems to come as a bi-product of hierarchical structures. ( You know the sort of thing - I need a car parking space/an assistant/better car / should be promoted to the same position as him/her etc. )

Here are some rules:
Rule 1 No assistants
Rule 2 Pay is measured against performance
Rule 3 Bonus all the staff on group performance
Rule 4 Have regular team meetings
Rule 5 Promote self help and survival tactics and don’t hide the bad news (or the good news) from the staff
Rule 6 Do not tolerate system abuse or bullsh!t from the staff (and occasionally use the f-word to get your point over – see next post, Management by the F Word)
Rule 7 Use contract staff wherever possible (No risk, no politics, pay on performance, no payroll tax, no hassle)

Engender self education in your workforce….

Today’s workforce is different. There are so many different wants for people today that their expectations of their employer are higher than they have ever been in history. In absence of common purpose, the focus is on self, “where is my career going, I want more time for family etc etc”. There has been a quantam shift in the employment attitudes of Gen Y versus their predecessors, much to the frustration of their managers whom often worked very long and hard to realise their career success.

The top consultancies – the McKinsey’s, Boston Consulting Group and others – employ smart people able to rapidly learn and assimilate concepts and deliver business value.

“I asked the tech guys a key question on some new technology and what was the right answer. They said,” we’ll tell you at 4pm”. What they were doing was posting the question on 100 newsgroups and using software to collate and rank the answers by the number of people agreeing with a single response. This is a self help, rapid learning approach. This was happening in 1999, well before the phenomenon of Google.