Over the past month I have been reflecting on the topic of organisational management. I am surprised by the number of organisations that survive perhaps through the benefit of their size or monopolistic position even though they exhibit some of the very worst management traits I've experienced.
Some corporations like Enron, HIH and WorldCom do fall by the wayside, whilst others continue on in mediocrity. Organisations that are shaken up by a leader with a true vision for the organisation inevitably experience a degree of pain that could have been avoided had previous leaders not exhibited one of the following top ten management failures.
Misdirected goals: Leaders sometimes espouse a mantra about what to do because it is fashionable without actually collecting and analysing data and then developing goals based on real information.
Corporate history is littered with examples. The internet boom gave history thousands of companies that spent billions of dollars on internet plays without understanding how customers would react to online experiences and in what time frames.
Cost cutting for cost cutting's sake is another favourite. Leaders have to be seen to be tough on costs, and so they are but at times at a cost to what drives their business profitability.
Phoney leadership: Leaders who continually say one thing and do another confuse their subordinates to the point of distraction. They rob organisations of morale and direction.
They know the right words and tend to love using lots of them, but nothing ever seems to transpire that demonstrates the words as being anything other than hollow. They are not to be trusted and should be shown the way to the door by boards as soon as possible.
Poor performance management: Leaders who preside over performance management systems which degrade into rituals preside over an organisation which is destined for mediocrity. When performance management systems do not objectively differentiate poor performance from good performance, the majority of employees will perform only to level that does not require too much effort.
Performance appraisals which are partisan, based on hearsay, or just plain uninformed are of no use to an organisation and should be stopped. It is better to have no performance management system than a severely flawed one.
Silo mentality: Allowing management silos to develop and continue to operate is a sure way of reducing efficiency as separate teams chase separate goals competing for what should always be limited resources or chasing the same goal with duplicated resources.
Lack of control: Organisations which delegate responsibility routinely to people or functions that do not have the appropriate competence or data from which to make decisions, and then compound it by not measuring the performance of the processes, are rightly bound for failure. This is not delegation. It is abdication.
Too many goals: A Chinese proverb holds true in organisations: "If you chase two rabbits, both will escape." To achieve one significant goal is a difficult task. It requires good strategy aligning people, processes and objective measurement of performance against the goal. Chasing two or three, or in many cases, four or more goals makes it too difficult to make the alignment and be objective about measurement of performance against the goal.
Excess of control: Leaders who insist on controlling everything at all times are at best likely to leave the organisation with an ineffective team unable to make decisions upon their departure. At worst they will build a sycophantic team of "yes" men or women running an inefficient organisation
No goals: Not having a goal or having a nebulous goal such as "World's best practice", at least makes it easy to claim to have achieved the goal. That is, nothing or nothing that can be measured objectively.
No performance management: Not measuring the performance of people, financial and physical assets and intellectual property is okay if your organisation finds it almost impossible not to make money or deliver the services that your customers require within your budget.
Inappropriate leadership style: A command and control style of leadership in an organisation which requires creativity is bound to fail. Equally, a laissez-faire leadership style in the military or police force would be equally disastrous. Leadership needs to be appropriate not only to the organisation, but also the circumstance.
Organisations succeed at times despite these management failures, but they do not thrive. They are unable also to withstand the pressure of adversity when the environment in which they operate turns against them.
These are common failures in big organisations that by their sheer size forget what they are there for and what their goals are.
Strong leadership with a clear well-communicated goal and a performance management system that objectively measures actual performance and determines corrective action are a must. In today's competitive environment, for big and small organisations alike, survival depends on it.
Kevin Dwyer is Director of Change Factory a change management and business improvement company located in Australia and the Fiji Islands. To see more articles visit http://www.changefactory.com.au |
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