On Management

Is Your Company an ‘Asking’ Organization? Or, A ‘Telling’ Organization?

To be an innovative company; to inspire employees to do their best; to go after new opportunities; and to be a good customer service oriented company, you had better be an ‘Asking’ organization.

This thought actually occurred to me several years ago when I was working for a company – no names please – that was clearly a ‘Telling’ organization. In other words, the culture was very autocratic – marked by top down; bark orders; 'senior execs are everything, lower downs are expendable' attitudes. In meetings one was never asked for their opinion, we were only told what to do. I once asked one of my managers for her counsel on how to approach a problem we were having and she froze like a deer in headlights. I could not get her to talk to me. Of course she agreed with everything I said (as her superior). Some time later after we developed a warmer working relationship I finally got her to admit to me that she would not tell me about any problems because that was not the way things were done in that company. I was floored at how ingrained the culture was. It was a miserable working environment and I could not wait to leave.

‘Asking’ organizations are usually pleasant places to work because the employees feel they are valued. Their experience and insight is needed to keep things improving and in the best shape possible to meet customer needs. Bosses need the constant flow of street level analysis from their departments to know if policies and programs are working. Consequently, innovation has the chance to thrive, new opportunities pop up frequently and more crises are averted.

Don’t get me wrong, managers have to lead and they have to make tough decisions that are not always popular with the ranks – it is not possible to treat every issue as a referendum. However, the more an organization encourages feedback; the more managers ask their people about what they notice within the operations or at customer touch-points; and the more senior executives ask “What do you think?” the better off the organization is in the long run.

So, think about it – is your department or your company an ‘Asking’ or a ‘Telling’ organization? Start asking your employees; they’ll tell you…eventually.

Thu Feb 16, 2006 10:15pm CST

CEO’s Need to Ask the Right Questions

OK, all managers need to do this - its just too easy to pick on CEOs in today's world. The problem is that management really only wants to hear the good stuff. So they many times shy away from asking the really insightful, probing questions because sometimes they really don’t want to know the answer, (Can you say Enron?). They just want somebody else to make a problem go away: “Hey if they do something wrong in the process – its their fault not mine; I’ll just fire them and find another patsy.”

The Emperor’s New Clothes is probably the most poignant fable for business management today. We need our CEO's - and all other managers for that matter - to be courageous and ask the hard questions without being afraid of the answers; Then, don't kill the messenger; And finally, Do Something About It!

Thu Feb 16, 2006 10:15pm CST

Ostrich Management

The doctrine of "What I don’t know won’t hurt me."  "If I ignore what’s going on around me I’ll survive better - reacting to all those problems might get me noticed and I don't want to get noticed."

The problem with taking the ostrich approach is that your big fat ass is still sticking out and there is a good chance you will still get noticed - and in a bad way.

Get your head out of the ground, look around and take notice of what is really happening - you owe it to yourself, your employees, your management and your customers.