A salient question for executives . . . “would an employee recognize you?”  Are you ever seen in the work or do you live in that ivory tower with an “open door policy?”

Many times sitting with executives in meetings I amazed about what is discussed.  Financials and targets of course is a topic, but the wild assumptions made in meetings are certainly not based in knowledge.  Challenge the hierarchy and you stand to get knocked down.  Remember, executives don’t like their thinking challenged.

Here lies one of the biggest obstacles to improvement.

Certainly ego plays a role.  Salary sometimes carries perceived knowledge.  “He makes a lot of money, he must be really smart.”  Not really.  In fact, too many executives have so little knowledge about what matters to customers.  When you ask them about such things, the responses turn to lagging measures of financials and targets.  Occasionally, you might find some survey that might help an organization understand how well they did, but nothing on what matters to customers.

Why?

Because that can only be done by getting your hands dirty in the work.  Ask an executive and they will do almost anything to avoid the work.  Excuses vary:

  • That’s below my pay grade
  • Too busy with meetings or any number of other “important things”
  • Golf outing
  • Vendor boondoggle
  • Working from home
  • I’d just get in the way (very telling)
  • I need to be a visionary at my level
  • I understand the work I came from the front-line (it hasn’t changed?)

I could come up with more, but maybe self-reflection would be a better method.

If executives are going to make decisions that will effect  the work of many, shouldn’t they really have knowledge about what is being changed?  Relying on vendors or “people I trust” just won’t cut the mustard anymore.  They need to be engaged before a plan is put together and the ball starts rolling down the hill to the point of no return.

I have learned that understanding your organization a system is not a spectator sport.  It requires engagement and understanding of the real problems – not the ones an executive has a tendency to make assumptions about that aren’t there.  Hiring “good people” is not enough unless you are willing to let them make the decisions without executive meddling.

Making decisions based on knowledge sometimes takes longer then making a snap decision, but the reverse is far more costly when the decisions you make are wrong, damaging or only addressing the symptoms and not causes.

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.  Read his articles at Quality Digest and his column for CustomermanagementIQ.com  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/TriBabbittor LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.