Listening to All Viewpoints
Most strategic mistakes result from one of two fundamental failures: 1) failure to consider a broader and more expansive range of alternatives before selecting a strategic direction; or 2) failure to consider the full context and extent of implications associated with implementing a particular strategy. At the heart of both of these fundamental failures lies the stark reality that some or many viewpoints are left unconsidered–listening to additional viewpoints ceases as the time for a decision approaches. Unfortunately, listening to all viewpoints takes time and effort when most strategic business decisions must be made quickly before windows of opportunity disappear, competitors beat you to market, or financial resources are allocated elsewhere. Consequently, the viewpoints with the loudest, most persuasive voices behind them usually win, resulting in increased political maneuvering and power posturing that further erode attempts to listen to all viewpoints.
Leaders must listen to all viewpoints at all times, regardless of the time, costs, or stage in the decision-making process. Promoting an attitude of listening to all viewpoints will help create an open, “anything is possible” culture that fosters creativity, innovation, and better strategic decision-making. Once people in the organization become accustomed to sharing their viewpoints openly and constantly, they will learn to do it at the appropriate times along the decision-making path, without being told.
The practice of listening to all viewpoints, if implemented consistently and thoroughly in the organization, can become a powerful tool and process for analysis, due diligence, and effective decision-making in any business enterprise. The secret to tapping the power of listening to all viewpoints lies in the motivation behind it–whether you believe that listening to all viewpoints makes you better or worse as an organization. The most admired companies work hard at consistently listening to all viewpoints because they’ve learned that when they don’t, they fail to tap the most important power source in their organizations–the knowledge and talent of their people. Robert Bacal, author of Performance Management and an expert on real listening and how to practice it, has this to say: “Whether you are an executive, manager, or line employee, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to improve your listening skills. People who listen effectively are perceived as more helpful, more ‘in tune,’ and tend to exert more influence over others than those that are less effective listeners.”
(From my book, Management Malpractice: How to Cure Unhealthy Management Practices That Disable Your Organization)
Lead The Way Through Change!
Are you willing to change yourself? How much and how often? When you encounter limits in your ability or willingness to change, do you become self-justifying and defensive or do you seek out other people with the necessary talents and capabilities to help you? How many times have you reinvented yourself during your lifetime? What did you learn about yourself during each transformation? If you have never reinvented yourself, would you like to? If not, why? Who do you know personally who has successfully invented herself or himself several times? Do you consider that person to be flaky or brilliant? What are your opinions and biases relative to change? Do you believe that leaders must change faster than they require their people and organizations to change?
You become a leader of change by creating change–and that means creating internal change faster than you’re required to adapt to external change. Don’t postpone, delay, suspend, or reschedule change; accelerate, expedite, advance, and spread change instead. The plea for more and better change management has been out there for more than two decades now. It’s time to stop procrastinating and begin thinking of leadership in terms of change. Change is the essence of leadership, and your ability to lead depends on your willingness to change. The best way to predict the future is to create it.
(From my book, Management Malpractice: How to Cure Unhealthy Management Practices That Disable Your Organization)
Restoration
My book, Management Malpractice, aims to expose management malpractice by showing how great management principles and strong corporate values often are consciously and unconsciously twisted and perverted by leaders and managers for their own gain at the expense of their people and organizations. When this happens–and it happens much too often in today’s business environment–these great management principles and strong corporate values turn into nothing more than worn-out clichés, meaningless lip service, manipulative devices, and outright lies.
However, once the malpractice has been exposed, managers and organizations can work together to restore the value and integrity of these principles. The principles can be reinstated and, if necessary, adapted and applied in a way that is realistic and effective in today’s competitive marketplace. Thus, a principle regains its authenticity not simply because it’s a nice sentiment, or the “right” thing to do, but rather because it reflects the current business reality. Values and principles then become more than aspirations or lofty goals in mission statements that are read once a year at the company meeting. They instead become strategic practices that are executed tactically and operationally at all levels of an organization. They become principles and values that allow you to take your organization to new heights.
Verbal and Emotional Abuse in Organizations
Many people in organizations are verbally and emotionally abused on a daily basis. They are bullied, berated, and belittled, making it difficult for them to respect others when they feel so disrespected themselves.
You can avoid the malpractice of ignoring aggressive verbal and emotional abuse in the workplace by taking a firm stand against it. People who persist in committing such abuses do so because they are allowed to get away with it. Don’t let that happen. Companies that make it clear to their employees that bullying and demeaning others is not only completely unacceptable but also grounds for termination create work environments where individuality and mutual respect can flourish.
Organizational Size — Does It Matter?
Too often, organizational size does not promote risk-taking; it instead promotes bureaucracy, the abuse of power, office politics, appearance over substance, paralysis by analysis, CYA behavior, and a host of other ills. It stifles creativity, freedom, innovation, entrepreneurship, motivation, and a host of other good things. Most of all, size promotes institutional preservation over innovation and risk-taking.
The malpractice of attracting talented people with the promise of resources to pursue creative, innovative, and risk-taking paths when you have no intention of funding such paths can only be averted by jumping in and taking more risks. If large corporations are going to thrive in a world of accelerating change, if they are going to overcome the growing criticism of their size and power, if they are going to take advantage of their most important attribute—their size—they must take more risks; wisely, but nonetheless more often. Put your money where your mouth is, corporate America—start taking more risks to create more value and make the world a better place to live and learn.
Work Life Balance?
Many organizations pay lip service to work-life balance, but few actually encourage employees to do whatever it takes to achieve such a balance. Moreover, many companies penalize employees who try to maintain work-life balance by offering them fewer opportunities for professional and financial advancement within the organization or branding them as “not committed” or a morale problem.
Every human being needs balance in his or her life. Organizations that fail to help their employees achieve a balance between their work and personal lives will ultimately mismanage their most important resource—their people— and fall behind in the race for talent. On the other hand, organizations that actively support and encourage innovative approaches to work-life balance will create work environments that attract and retain the best people. In an economy where attracting, developing, retaining, and making the most of talent is becoming more and more difficult, success will depend on improving human resource management. Achieving work-life balance is an important starting point.
What Matters Most?
Organizations have enormous power to focus efforts on collective goals, objectives, issues, problems, and results, if they so choose. It’s the power of an organization’s convergent effect — people coming together in a planned way to accomplish something mutually beneficial for all involved. That’s the theory of organization. However, when organizations fail to identify what matters most, they allow their natural converging power to diffuse and dissipate. Some organizations only vaguely define what matters most because the organization’s leaders are uncertain about basic priorities. While uncertainty about what matters most in an organization can damage the organization’s culture, morale, and collective resolve, it is a function of incompetence, not malpractice. On the other hand, some organizations intentionally don’t clearly define what matters most because they are reluctant or afraid to clearly communicate what matters most. They are worried that if the organization’s employees knew what the true desires and intentions of the organization’s leaders really were, they would become overly cynical and less motivated. In such cases, organizational leaders often use common organizational purposes — adding economic value, attracting and keeping customers, serving market needs, or contributing to cash flow and profit — to cover up their true ambitions for personal fame, fortune, and power. The result is a hypercynical corporate culture that has little ability to achieve and sustain excellence or greatness.
The malpractice of hiding what matters most because it involves personal agendas and gain can be avoided by being honest and straightforward. If the creation of personal wealth is what matters most to you, then let people in your organization know it and help them to pursue it as well, for their benefit and yours. When what matters most in your organization remains hidden, obscured, or unclear, it will prevent you from building a strong organizational culture, hiring the right people, implementing focused strategies, and achieving collective results. People need to know what matters most to the organization where they work; otherwise they become frustrated, distracted, bored, cynical, and otherwise unproductive.
Great Resources from Vault.com
Vault.com has built two databases of supreme import.
The first is the Vault Employee Surveys and Gold Snapshots database that allows you to “get the inside scoop on:
Workplace culture: Corporate culture, diversity, opportunities for advancement and more.
Interview & Recruiting: The hiring process, interview questions and more.
Salary & Compensation: Base salaries, bonuses, benefits and more.
Business Outlook: Competitive landscape, employee morale and more.”
The second is a database of Occupation Surveys wherein you are able to “read detailed insider information about top careers, provided exclusively to Vault by professionals in each industry and occupation.”
This information is invaluable; get a lot of use out of it!
CNNMoney.com Links
Check out the following links from CNNMoney.com:
2006’s Fortune 500
2006 Smart List
100 Best Employers for 2006
101 Dumbest Moments in Business
The Vision Thing
Oftentimes, organizational visions change sporadically to accommodate management whims, strategic mistakes, competitor moves, market reactions, and financial blunders. When such vision changes occur, management goes to great lengths to create a compelling “spin” to make people feel that vision hasn’t been prostituted. However, certainties that are manufactured by management rarely create inspirational visions.
True visions motivate people, leading them to stretch themselves well beyond their comfort zones, causing them to build high-performance teams built upon common purpose, and allowing them to accomplish far more than they would have accomplished without the vision. True visions can achieve much more than counterfeit certainties that merely direct and control people and organizations. True visions create a passion and resolve in people that allow them to guide and develop themselves — the best indicator of a truly great organization.
When organizations and their leaders create illusions of certainty to cope with the realities of uncertainty, they create cultures of certainty rather than cultures of vision. In cultures of certainty, people become dependent upon management’s ability to create a stable, predictable working environment. The problem is that such working environments don’t function very well in this age of constant change, high volatility, intense competition, shrinking margins, and talent wars. In cultures of vision, people learn to deal with ambiguity by participating in shaping the future and creating visions of value creation. Interestingly, when vision, rather than certainty, is created, people really do flourish in their ability to anticipate and adapt to change; redirect efforts flexibly and resiliently; and discover and exploit opportunities that fit within the scope of the organization’s vision. Vision was never meant to be certainty, which is one of the major reasons why organizations perish when there is certainty and not vision.