Sunday, March 25, 2007
Bringing in Consultants to enable cultural change...
There is something about not listening to the people actually doing the jobs...
If you want to enable change throughout your enterprise, you need to consider bringing in a consultant who can run around asking every employee what should be done to fix things around this place. This consultant will distill all collected responses and present them to upper management and will give praises to the consulting firm for enabling positive change. Management will also respond as if they haven't ever heard those ideas before.
Do you remember the old TV show Dragnet. There was a phrase that applies in terms of gathering feedback: The story you are about to see is true, the names have been changed to protect the innocent. The funny thing when you apply this to corporate culture, feedback collected in an anonymous manner is used to protect the guilty.
In any situation of authority and submission, the superior is in a position to punish or ignore subordinates who report information that does not fit their preconceived notions and reward those who report information which does. As a result, those in the subordinate position are discouraged from accurate representation of awkward facts to avoid punishment and encouraged to report only those facts for which they will be rewarded.
I wonder ifleadership management in large enterprises understand that accurate communication is only possible between equals? People, then process, then tools - in that order...
| | View blog reactionsIf you want to enable change throughout your enterprise, you need to consider bringing in a consultant who can run around asking every employee what should be done to fix things around this place. This consultant will distill all collected responses and present them to upper management and will give praises to the consulting firm for enabling positive change. Management will also respond as if they haven't ever heard those ideas before.
Do you remember the old TV show Dragnet. There was a phrase that applies in terms of gathering feedback: The story you are about to see is true, the names have been changed to protect the innocent. The funny thing when you apply this to corporate culture, feedback collected in an anonymous manner is used to protect the guilty.
In any situation of authority and submission, the superior is in a position to punish or ignore subordinates who report information that does not fit their preconceived notions and reward those who report information which does. As a result, those in the subordinate position are discouraged from accurate representation of awkward facts to avoid punishment and encouraged to report only those facts for which they will be rewarded.
I wonder if
