Business & Finance Online Expert

Posts Tagged ‘Leadership’

It’s my opinion that today’s “best” practices of leaders not only fail to resolve the problems they’re meant to resolve or achieve the results they’re meant to achieve, they actually escalate problems. I’d like to recommend alternative practices to take their place. After all, reality has shifted and those who cling to old practices that no longer serve them and perhaps never did, will fail to thrive. Seriously. Fail to thrive. Here, I will touch on the first “best” practice and hope to provoke your thinking, in subsequent entries, regarding all six.

Consider that you are always practicing something. The question is: what are you practicing. And why? Are you emulating practices of well-known, global companies, many of whom are now struggling and, in some cases, bankrupt? It’s time for some original thinking.

“Worst” Best Practice #1: 360 Anonymous Feedback

Which word in “360 Anonymous Feedback” alerts us that a company professing to value openness, honesty and transparency is out of integrity? Anonymous. I expect to take a lot of heat from those who make a living ensuring anonymity, but I believe that, while there is a time and place for anonymity, we only need it in trace amounts.

It starts early in our impressionable lives – this attraction to anonymity. This hiding. So it’s no wonder that, when there are invaluable opportunities for candor, we send in good old underpaid, overworked “anonymous”, slip the feedback over the transom and run like hell. The fact is that 360 anonymous feedback rarely creates real or lasting impetus for change, which is crazy because the whole idea is to encourage professional growth and it most certainly doesn’t connect us with one another; rather, it tends to drive us apart. Here are a few highlights, or lowlights:

*The culture suffers side effects. Commercials for the latest, greatest drugs include the warning that side effects can include loss of vision, muscle spasms, internal bleeding, uncontrolled barking and sudden death. OK, maybe not barking, but you get the drift. The warnings for anonymous feedback should read: “Not to be used within organizations that value honesty,transparency, or openness or by anyone who views “authenticity” as a desirable character trait. Side effects can include a culture of terminal niceness, avoiding or working around problem employees, tolerating mediocrity, beating around the bush, dancing around the subject, skirting the issues. If you experience rapidly deteriorating relationships or have difficulty maintaining eye contact with others, call your doctor immediately as these may indicate a serious problem and could become permanent.”

*Most people hate performance reviews – hardly the response you’d hope for regarding a best practice. Other emotions associated with performance reviews include: dread, anxiety, hopelessness, fear, frustration and a firm conviction that a trip to the bathroom for a surreptitious examination of the boil on your backside would be a far better use of your time.

Many movies have been made about the tragic story of the Titanic. Arrogance and ignorance was definitely present during its maiden voyage, which was Titanic’s last voyage.

Many warnings were given, but unfortunately, the warnings were not taken seriously. On April 14th, 1912 Titanic received six warnings that icebergs were present in their perimeter. On the night of April 14th, Titanic struck an iceberg and ultimately sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

For other entities, what happened to the Titanic does NOT have to happen to them. Many have learned from the mistakes that Titanic had made.

There are several examples that follow and form a parallel to what happened to Titanic and how an entity can learn from Titanic’s mistakes.

1. The Titanic only had 16 lifeboats, which was not nearly enough to save everyone on the ship.

Only about 60% of the entire lifeboats’ capacity was utilized! Does your company have a disaster plan in place? Are your computers, especially your servers, being backed up on a regular basis? Many servers are now being backed up on a daily basis and sometimes on an hourly basis.

When I was working at a Helpdesk, one of our afternoon gals was named the “Backup Queen” because she took EVERY major server backup VERY seriously. The company was very lucky to have the “Backup Queen” because there were several instances where our most critical server had crashed and lost information. Fortunately, information restoration was quick and painless due to the machine being backed up on a regular basis.

We were very lucky to have someone who took the initiative to handle the server backups. Is your company that lucky? Yes, doing backups can be VERY unexciting. However, losing valuable data can be very exciting, but in a negative way.

2. The crewmen in the lookout tower, or the “crow’s nest,” were not issued binoculars to better search for icebergs.

Employees were not given the proper tools to use to do their job. Is your company using the right software for the job? Are you saving money on upgrading your operating system and software, but are losing customers? If you are losing customers, you’re NOT really saving any money at all.

The right equipment can range from the very basic, such as issuing headphones that are compatible with the phone system to customer service representatives, to ensuring that a backup generator can adequately run due to a power outage.

3. Titanic had a total of 16 watertight compartments. Initially, it sounded fine, but unfortunately, each compartment did not hold water on its own. Every compartment was similar to an ice cube tray. When one compartment overflowed, water flowed into the next compartment. Each compartment did not completely seal off water on its own.

Does your company have a good disaster recovery plan in place? If a flood or a fire struck the premises, would you be able to resume business operations in a matter of days or would it take a matter of months?

Is your information that you have on site being sent off site so you CAN have another place to access your valuable information?