Do you know what I think is the biggest problem facing organizations today?
Let me start by sharing a fable.
A hard-working team of leaders created a strategy for their business and handed it over to the organization. They put a ton of energy into making sure that their messaging was strong, that their metrics were tight, and that they had allocated their assets (esp. people and budget) to deliver a win at the end of the year.
But a year is a long time.
And in that year, external disruptions sprung up everywhere.
The competition created a pricing battle that eroded both confidence and profitability. A key supplier didn’t see the original relationship as a priority. The government passed a new regulation that they did not see coming.
All of these disruptions created a domino effect in internal operations. Budget was pulled back, which led to a reduction in recruiting efforts. And salaries. Promised technology upgrades were pushed to “next year.” And so on and so on…
Is this a case of bad leadership?
That’s not an easy answer.
On one hand, I think that we have over-rotated toward blaming leaders for when things don’t go as planned. Plans go sideways all of the time, and there’s no way any plan can predict what and when those obstacles will manifest themselves.
Furthermore, if leadership is such a perfect solution, then every time things are going well we could point directly to leadership as the cause. But you and I both know that many groups are successful IN SPITE of their leadership. Things work because that organization is lucky. Or because it had everyone work like crazy to fix what bad leadership wanted. Or because the competition simply fumbled badly.
We see famous organizations run by leaders who can be any one of the following:
- Extremely nice
- Incredibly narcissistic
- Highly disciplined
- Diabolically crafty
- Wildly smart
- Verifiably crazy
- And more…
Exceedingly successful organizations can be led by literally anyone. And there is no pattern to it. There is no single super-persona that all leaders must become.
On the other hand, we still have enormous amounts of dysfunction in the workplace that leaders are ultimately responsible for:
- Quiet quitting
- Quiet firing
- Increasing levels of burnout
- Budget overspend
- Missed deadlines
- Massive waste
All of which increase the burden on the team. And increase the stress of the leader.
Which leads me to say that I think the biggest problem facing organizations today is their poor ability to execute.
As I pointed out before, organizations often fit into two buckets:
- They rely on their innovation to produce an overabundance of cash to waste or
- They force people outright to do more with less.
Yes, leadership is part of the problem here. But so is everyone else.
In our digitally-connected reality, anyone – and I mean anyone – can undo a decision. Especially the decisions that are intended to fix the problem.
For example, anyone can stop doing what is a priority. Anyone can create a new priority. A competing priority. Until “everything is a priority.”
Well, prioritization is the Achilles’ heel of strategy.
And that is just one example of how the problem is not simply a leadership issue. The entire team must share the responsibility for not executing well.
On Mar. 25th, I’m running a special executive briefing about how to address this issue. This particular event is designed for senior leaders with the authority to be the solution.
But I am increasingly seeing that a ton of interest from people who want to join because they don’t know how to effectively help their senior leaders. They struggle with getting what they need to execute well. As a result, they are frustrated, tired, and losing their motivation.
If I’m describing you in the paragraph above, stay tuned. I am working on something just for you.
And if you are a senior leader who is worried about your team, register for the free executive briefing now. I promise you, those 30 minutes will be worth more than you realize.
Holomua. Onward and upward.
All the best ~ Tim
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