I went to a wedding over the weekend in West Baden Springs, Indiana.  A historical place discovered by George Rogers Clark for its mineral springs and later served as a hideout for Al Capone.  The wedding was outside in the garden area and was really well choreographed with a string quartet, beautiful bride, handsome groom, reception, dinner and dancing. 

As I sat there during the wedding, I pondered the marriage of a new employee to an organization.  I have seen new employees enter an organization where it takes weeks to orient the newcomer to the organization or come in and have a well choreographed beginning.  Neither necessarily means one organization is more profitable than another, but how well one is treated certainly will have an impact on the “marriage.”

The marriage between employee and organization has become tenuous at best.  Not necessarily because of “hiring the wrong people”, but having a bad system that makes employment mostly unbearable.  Systems based on poor work design, being held accountable for decisions made by managers that don’t understand the work, entrapping technology, targets and incentives that on one hand help you make more money and on the other hand get you paid attention to for poor quality.  These and other system constraints (scripts, policies, standard work, etc.) and conditions prevent an employee to adapt to the system and become a valuable partner in the relationship.

When things go wrong in the marriage and the blame starts flying, divorce is not far off.  No less happens in organizations, a customer is upset, problem occurs, or profit is not achieved and the first thing that happens is the finger-pointing and in an organization the blame always flows down.  It certainly can’t be the one in authority it has to be the one that is perceived as weaker that is to blame.  For organizations, the system is to blame  . . . the things I mentioned earlier (poor work design, technology, scripts, policies, measures, management, etc.).  The performance of any organization is 95% attributable to the system and 5% to the individual.

A better way is to understand the purpose of the work, come up with measures and liberate method.  Managers and workers that have the same purpose (as defined by the customer) don’t have the same systems problems and don’t require rules, policies, inspection, audits and the like that increase costs and strain the relationship.  The measures don’t have to be targets and incentives, because the married couple know what they are trying to accomplish and for who (the customer). Decision-making is put back with the work, because the couple realizes that to serve the customer they have to understand the customer and what matters to them, instead of one of them making decisions off of some report.  Taking these approaches may very well save your marriage by building a foundation that is cost reducing, customer value adding and profitable.

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbitt or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.