Your organization, like all organizations, depends on your people. Clients and customers are paramount, however, the success of for-profit and non-for-profit organizations alike, is contingent on having good people and keeping them engaged and happy. Unfortunately, too many organizations don’t seem to either realize or appreciate this maxim.
As a leader, manager, or board-member, what follows are twenty-one real examples of signs that you might be heading for a figurative train wreck that will hinder or even jeopardize your short-medium-and long-term success, regardless of your type of organization.
Consistently changing your direction, goals, and objectives. This doesn’t imply that organizations cannot change goals and directions; however, for your people, having stability and clearly defined goals, sufficient time to implement and execute those goals along providing tools to do their work shouldn’t be something that gets changed every week.
Leaders and Management who engage in contradictory behavior. If your organization’s leadership does not share the same goals, your people can be caught in the middle of a power “tug-of-war” leading to stress, anxiety, and severe morale issues; this can be worse than a leadership team that is constantly changing direction. This issue can be particularly difficult for people working in a family business where clear lines of authority can often be non-existent.
Volatile, unpredictable, and Mercurial Management. Volatile comments and reactions, screaming, inconsistency, and public demonstrations of anger are not helpful. A “shotgun” approach to correcting behavior can often hit unintended targets and build anxiety, stress, and destroy morale.
Not remembering the phrase “No conversation about me, without me.” Leaders and managers will often discuss their people privately, and those discussions are important. However, those discussions should only be a precursor to interactive conversations with the people themselves.
Not using your bench. I have seen organizations that seek out and hire good people, they ask, listen, and use their skills, experiences, and behaviors to become stronger. I have also seen organizations where leaders and managers seem to think they have a monopoly on good ideas, they ignore suggestions and feedback, or worse solicit feedback and then publicly never use it. Developing and nurturing your people fosters sustainability and ensures the long-term survival of good organizations.
Similarly, micromanaging highly skilled people is almost as bad for an organization as not utilizing their skills and expertise. Highly motivated and highly skilled people should be valued and allowed to contribute; however, constraining them and limiting their contribution will only lead to their exit from your organization.
Not participating in conferences and meetings. Similar to the previous point, often organizations fail their people and customers/clients by isolating themselves from similar or complementary organizations. Learning from other people and organizations is one of the hallmarks of successful teams and organizations. Failing to explore fresh ideas, seek new input on failed ideas, engage their people in conversations in the car on the way to a conference, have discussions in the hallways before seminars, and build networks leads to resistance to change and stagnation of growth.
Leaders and managers who lose the trust and respect of their people. Integrity is one of the building blocks of any organization, leaders who do not value and live with integrity are likely already experiencing a decline in performance, morale, and staff retention. Their people who have no other choice will remain; most others will find better opportunities.
Failing to set a good example. Managers and leaders who don’t provide calmness and professionalism in pressure situations cannot expect their people to demonstrate those same qualities. Unfortunately, I have seen organizations where the principal leaders scream and yell at each other regularly. It negatively affects their clients and customers and takes a large toll on their people as well.
Additionally, if middle managers are assigned targets and goals and senior managers consistently overrule their decisions, particularly without their input, resentment, and anger are the result with the net result the goals become impossible to achieve because of the meddling of upper management.
Nepotism. Owners, Managers, and Leaders who bring their children into their organization without paying their dues can create a toxic environment for their people. This entitlement trap can negatively affect your organization’s morale and ironically will make life very difficult for the person inserted into the organization. Blood may be thicker than water, but it does not provide the skills, experience, and behavior required for most positions in an organization. The proper way to bring relatives into any organization is solely on merit, allowing no interference, and by making the addition earn their place on the team, just as everyone else in the organization has to.
Having and playing favorites. Having favorites or separate rules for people doing the same function is a recipe for building resentment, undermining morale, and negatively affecting retention. The ability to be fair, and consistent, and build everyone on staff should be every manager and leader’s goal.
Not making training a priority. In the era of skilled labor shortages, organizations that do not engage in developing their people, not cross-training them, and not appreciating the intrinsic value of training will definitely hasten their organization’s arrival at a trainwreck much sooner than their competition.
Placating difficult people at the expense of those who follow the rules. Not dealing with a problem personality because of your organization’s dependence on their skills is short-sighted and unfair to those people who are not a problem and will only lead to greater problems. Anticipating issues, including personal problems, is a key component of being a successful management team. The solution is to act to mitigate these types of personalities, plan solutions, and implement them.
Additionally, if rules are not equally applied and/or there are no repercussions for violators can also lead to significant issues and morale problems.
Organizational leaders who do not meet their own deadlines. For example, an organization that schedules its people month to month with a self-declared deadline of the 15th of the month for the following schedule that consistently misses that deadline erodes trust, and respect, and creates unnecessary stress for people. Your people need sufficient lead times to plan their lives, failure to deliver on that commitment will cause them to start to look for some other organization that allows them to have a life.
Not using KPIs to measure the success of initiatives. Organizations that operate by “the seat of their pants,” and fail to measure results are only picking up speed heading to their train wreck. A truism for success and improvement is to discover “Lessons Learned” and having clear measures of what success is and looks like is vitally important.
Not recognizing the people who make the organization’s success possible. Who are the people who do their jobs every day, who are the people who stay late without being asked, who are the people who start early and rarely miss a day or a shift? When was the last time your organization recognized their efforts publicly? If your organizational leaders don’t know, be prepared for an unanticipated train wreck because other organizations may be already trying to recruit your people.
Focusing on the “Big Picture” and ignoring “little picture problems. Too many leaders and managers are blinded by larger issues without truly appreciating the impacts of dozens of easily fixable situations occurring daily. The sum of small problems which can often be easily resolved dwarf the larger issues many organizations face. Effective leaders can multiply synergy by keeping their short-, medium–, and long-term goals aligned, allowing their small fixes to influence their big-picture targets.
Having lousy meetings. If your organization’s meetings have no direction, no agenda, no interactivity, and often plunge down into rabbit holes, you are likely wasting your people’s time, at best nothing is really accomplished, and at worst your staff exit the meeting frustrated, and resenting the time your meetings took from their days.
Setting unrealistic targets with no discussion of “how” to achieve those goals. Discussed and agreed-upon goals challenge people to stretch and push themselves for the organization. Unrealistic and poorly thought-out goals discourage and create apathy and excuses.
Similarly, poor leaders and managers will make major changes to an organization and not make accommodations in existing targets and goals, expecting their people to absorb the disruptions of change as well as achieve their targets.
Refusing to consider fresh ideas. It takes seconds to destroy creativity with a flat “NO” response, where a better leader or manager will say, “That’s a good suggestion, let me think about it before giving you an answer.” The response may still be “NO,” but allowing consideration will foster more suggestions and innovations.
Telling a key current and historic contributor, they are just an employee. Finding good people who make large contributions, work more hours than expected, care, and put the organization ahead of their own interests is rare. Telling these people, that they are little more than just a cog in a wheel will cause the organization to lose their best people.
I have seen or experienced all of these in my career, some are major warning signs, and some are less significant; however, all left unchecked can undermine the success of any organization. People are what make an organization live, thrive, or die and while each of these discussion points are signs of danger ahead, each of them is fortunately avoidable and correctable.
Good luck,
Paul