In many ways, organizations simulate a unique life form. They begin or are born when people come together. They can grow and thrive over time, maturing and getting stronger and larger as more people come together to use their products and/or services. I also believe organizations can experience ailments, often caused by the same people who came together to start or maintain the organization. Some of these ailments are minor and isolated, others begin small but can combine to destroy the organization; although almost all are curable if remedial action is taken.
I am outlining a few of the workplace ailments I have experienced and sharing them as precautionary prescription for you to recognize and take action.
Meeting Narcolepsy – Symptoms: One or more attendees nodding off, losing focus, and sometimes even falling asleep during a meeting. Cause: One person droning on and on with little or no interaction and the unique ability to take an interesting subject and make it so boring people cannot wait to escape. Cure: Plan, prepare, and execute interactive meetings. Make an effort to have interesting discussions, provide value, start and finish on time, gauge the audience, and ask questions.
Going through the motions sickness – Symptoms: Workers who come in exactly on time, do what is asked and nothing more, do not share opinions or ideas, and stay in the same job until the job doesn’t exist anymore. Cause: Lack of encouragement and inclusiveness, zero potential for advancement, and dull boring work. Cure: Nurture people’s development, become genuinely interested in them and their goals and desires and listen.
“Sears Management Syndrome” – Symptoms: Managers and Supervisors who lack current awareness of what their frontline people are doing. Cause: Some organizations are so structured that advancement from frontline worker to senior decision-maker takes ten or more years and each advancement removes the manager further and further away from customers, clients, and the people doing the work. Cure: End the segregation of leadership in lunchrooms and staff functions. Rotate executives from the corporate suites into customer/client workspaces. Insist managers speak to all of their people regularly and on a first-name basis.
Cellitis – Symptoms: People juggling and almost dropping their phones when surprised by a co-worker or supervisor. Distracted or inattentive people play online games or watch TikTok instead of working. Cause: Boring work, lack of engagement, insufficient supervision or dedication. Cure: Cell phones are a great tool; however, often they are not the tool required for someone’s task or priorities. Instead of banning cell phones, train and motivate people to focus on goals and tasks; then find what they “are doing right” and praise them.
UnderstandingNot – Symptoms: Nodding heads when asked “Do you understand” and then their inability to complete what they just said they understood. Cause: Human Nature, we are conditioned academically not to “look bad” by telling people in authority that we didn’t grasp the concept of things being taught. Cure: Do not ask “Do you understand,” instead encourage people to admit they might need further instructions, monitor and assist with performance, and provide notes and effective instructions to help people learn new systems and processes.
Proceduralrigidity – Symptoms: The prevailing response to any new process or symptom is the phrase “That’s not how WE DO THINGS AROUND HERE.” Cause: Past successes have ingrained a superiority complex and an arrogance that stifles new thinking and growth. Cure: Loss of status, the realization that standing “pat” means moving backward, and leadership to explore new and better ways.
Measured Disinnovation – Symptoms: Senior Management encourages fresh ideas and new procedures as long as they match the wisdom and suggestions provided by senior management. Cause: Managers with blind spots you could drive a truck through. Too many “Yes” people who are willing to agree constantly with their managers and save their “swimming pools” rather than challenging senior management when they are wrong. Lack of realization that “conventional wisdom” discourages innovation. Cure: Encouraging risk, welcoming new ideas, actively soliciting and/or copying new concepts from the competition, defining success, and measuring the results of old and new wisdom.
“Are you fucking kidding me” promotions – Symptoms: Management at any level promoting a “favorite” or someone everyone in the organization knows is useless except for management. Cause: Management that does not watch or listen to the interaction of its workers and managers. Promotions are based on opinion rather than empirical evidence and collaboration with front-line staff. Cure: Managers take leadership postures and ask questions, listen to the responses, use their feedback to collaborate and make better decisions, and appreciate how the “team” will respond to any promotion.
Do more with less, stupidities – Symptoms: Management expects their workers to find ways to put 10 gallons of water into a 5-gallon hat. Anger, anxiety and stress, resentment, lead to staff retention issues. Cause: Management believes their organizations can constantly find efficiencies when they are already working at a 100% level. Organizations try to accomplish too much without providing time and tools for their people to have any chance of success. Cure: Give your team the time and resources to win. Define success and with clarity and conciseness work with them to plan how to achieve and execute. Find efficiencies through regular “lessons learned” interactive activities with the people doing the work, not some bureaucrat who dictates direction only by examining “the numbers.”
The myth of Multi-tasking – Symptoms: Expecting and believing that people can do more than one task well at any given moment. Cause: Years of mistaken belief that we can do more than one thing at a time. For example, a cook may be able to prepare several meals during a set period; however, their focus is on one dish at a time which they leave while they check on other things. Cure: Appreciation the definition of multi-tasking is actually the ability to do one thing well at any given moment, be able to be interrupted, and then return to that task without losing their work or reference point.
Siloed Meetings – Symptoms: Organizations whose regular meetings lack any interconnectivity, follow-up, and the assigned work never seem to materialize. Cause: Lack of connection between organizational vision and organization actions resulting in duplication, gaps, no clear direction, or effective actions. Cure: Recap the previous meeting at the start of the next, at the end of each meeting recap the key takeaways for the attendees so everyone is clear about the organizational direction and plans. Communicate value and coordination in each meeting.
Siloed evaluations – Symptoms: Reviews that lack any link or connection to previous reviews or any concrete plan on how to achieve the goals outlined in the evaluation. Cause: Annual evaluations are solely completed because HR says they must be completed. Goals and assignments that are not necessarily consistent with the organizational mission or vision. Cure: Planning and preparing reviews for people that begin with the organizational mission statement and its goals how they affect the person being evaluated and how that person can help impact and deliver those outcomes. Every review builds on the last and its success is measured in the next.
The myth of “skin in the game” – Symptoms: Organizational leaders for the next generation of family ownership mistakenly believe they are the only people who matter. A person’s last name is a poor indicator of either talent or ability. Cause: Entitlement and a lack of appreciation of the very capable people who have dedicated their careers to helping an organization succeed. Cure: Elimination of nepotism of any form and have each person earn their place in the organization based on the skills, experiences, and attitudes they bring.
Mushrooming – Symptoms: In the dark covered in shit may grow good mushrooms but it is no way to treat people. People are frustrated, stressed, have low morale, and often are thinking of or seeking other employment. Cause: Organizations fail because they lack clarity and transparency or don’t share the “rules of the game” with their people. . Cure: Trust your people, share as much information as possible, and enlist their help in finding solutions.
“Annual pay cuts” – Symptoms: Frustration, declining participation, poor morale, and retention issues. Cause: Not having an annual “cost of living increase” and/or acknowledgment that people deserve to have their compensation offset inflation. Cure: Value your people, fully or partially offset the effect of inflation on salaries. Plan your budgets accordingly.
Fostering stupidity – Symptoms: For example, punishing people who don’t take sick days by not allowing them to carry them forward. Few organizations even thank people for their dedication. Or, telling staff their bonuses are reduced or eliminated but paying out large management bonuses or the owner purchasing a vintage sports car they drive to work each day. Cause: Not considering the “law of unintended consequences” or considering what is fair. Cure: Appreciate costs are more than financial and collaborate with more than yourself when deciding policies and processes.
Not defining fits and/or lanes – Symptoms: Terminating the employment of someone with the excuse “You’re not a good fit” without ever explaining “what a good fit” might be from day one. Additionally, terminating someone for not staying in “their lane” when they are in a job that requires them to consider various perspectives to succeed. Cause: Management or senior executives who are feeling threatened by someone different, smarter, and/or more objective than them. Cure: It is expensive to hire and train people, be very clear from the beginning on how they can succeed and what boundaries you and your organization have.
More is not always better – Symptoms: Having too many people for the requirements of the organization. Cause: Failing to balance the needs of the organization with the needs of its people. In retail and food services, the effect of too many people is reduction of hours and/or staff reduction. Cure: Establish benchmarks for staffing based on key performance indexes and be cognisant of market conditions. Protect people’s income – don’t hire too many salespeople or McDonald’s staff.
Do you or does your organization suffer from any of these workplace ailments? Maybe it does and maybe there are even more that are not in this brief list. Few of them are fatal in themselves to your organization; however, just like in your own life and your own ailments, failing to take remedial action as symptoms occur can cause these ailments to grow. Not taking action, or curing the illness can stifle your organization, consume resources needed elsewhere, drive customers/clients/staff away, and ultimately can cause your organization to fail and die.
Learn to recognize the symptoms, discover the causes, and implement the cures.
Good luck,
Paul.