As I read today’s CNN headline, “Obama Signs Healthcare ‘Fixes’ Bill,” I’m struck at just how backward politicians of every stripe are compared to what’s becoming standard fare in the high performance business world.
In the high performance world, something that needs to be fixed after you’ve made it is called a defect. Defects represent a form of waste. They represent waste because defects have to be either scrapped or re-worked. Scrapping something represents money down the drain. Re-working it adds unnecessary costs.
In the high performance world, when you produce defects you understand that as long as the systems remain the same you’ll reliably keep building defects. So in order to stop building defects, high performance organizations change their systems and processes so they won’t produce more defects. They try to get the right results the first time.
But in the political world, when you produce defects you first try to find someone to blame for creating the defects. It’s especially convenient to blame the other party. That’s in part because politicians are often less concerned with the results as they are with the process–especially the process of getting re-elected. (That’s why Kennedy and Deal in their book Corporate Cultures referred to bureaucracy as a process culture out of control.) “Just work the process; we’ll fix the problems we created later,” they say.
That’s foreign thinking to high performance organizations who understand that customers won’t pay for those fixes and that everyone needs to accept personal accountability for continuous improvement.
It’s hard to think like this unless you have a high level of emotional intelligence and maturity. Given the spectacle we’ve seen in Washington lately, this may be the primary reason politicians can’t seem to learn from high performers.
I alerted our Leadership Report readers to this new CBS “reality” TV show last week. It came after last night’s Super Bowl. I couldn’t handle it after watching such a great game. Sort of like chasing a perfectly grilled prime ribeye with a cheap white zinfandel. (Is there an expensive white zin?)
For those who were watching more serious fare, like I Love Lucy re-runs, Undercover Bossis is about corporate CEO’s who masquerade as someone else so they can snoop on their employees. Some snooping may be perceived as good and some bad by the producers. But snooping is always disingenuous in my book.
It may be cute TV but a leader resorting to dishonesty to get in touch with his organization and its people is perverse, uproots the concept of authentic leadership and eliminates the leader as a candidate for teaching the corporate ethics class. Its potential for abuse is horrendous.
In today’s climate, it’s important for leaders to tell the truth. Authenticity has its virtues. CEO’s have immense political and personal influence. They have opportunity to inflict both good and bad. But when you tell people you’re a dockworker when you’re not, you aren’t telling the truth and you compromise yourself and your position. And your real motives come into question.
Some may say that walking incognito “among the troops” is a good thing. But, I believe there isn’t something fundamentally wrong about the relationship between a leader and his people if he has to fake it to stay in touch?
Some news media are desperately trying to hang on to the separation between the editorial and business sides of their business, although it’s getting awfully murky out there when advertising appears on news pages and is camouflaged in magazines as news stories) but I wonder about any dilemma CBS might face as its news people seek transparency from leaders while its programmers celebrate CEO’s who lie and hide.
Your thoughts?
According to a piece in The New York Times a couple of weeks ago, at least one banker attempts to rationalize high pay in the financial industry with the need to fund the industry members’ personal lifestyles.
In an objective article by Steven Brill, a banker defends the need for high pay that’s paid now–with no deferral.
“A lot of our folks have second and third homes and alimony payments and other obligations that require substantial current cash.”
So the notion here is that compensation structures should be designed to accommodate the financial needs of the employees rather than to encourage and pay employees to act in ways that are consistent with meeting customer and shareholder requirements. This employee-comes-before-the-shareholder-and-customer mindset is dangerous in any business or industry. But it’s no doubt the same mindset that encouraged other goofy behavior, including former Merrill CEO John Thain’s decision to spend $1.2 million on his office and a couple of conference rooms.
It’s putting me over we and that’s dangerous in banking or any other industry.
Is “They just don’t get it” a fair observation?
You can learn a lot about leading an organization by watching the news.
The Tiger Woods episode should remind all of us once again to respond fast to the news media, tell the truth and get on with. Dragging it out as he did added several days to a story that could have been over in two news cycles.
President Obama’s approval rating continues to decline. As a strictly non-partisan independent, I see him doing exactly what George W. Bush did right after his second election, but from a different philosophical point of view. Obama, like Bush, seems to be throwing all kinds of mud at the wall hoping like hell something sticks. Obama, like Bush, seemingly has a different agenda or country he’s travelling to every day. The message has blurred and focus is diminishing. (Retrievable, of course.)
Employees in many companies call this “program of the day.” Saying to themselves, “First management is talking about such and such. Next they’re talking about something else. We just tune it out because eventually it’ll all go away.” Isn’t that what’s happening?
For business leaders, the lesson is the same. Create your “story.” Tell it through what you say and what you do. Keep telling it over and over through your walk and talk. And then when you think you’ve told it as many times as you need to and you’re sick of telling it, tell it one more time.
In that respect, running for office and governing in business or politics is very much the same.
