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Step 8 - Don't Worry About Who Can Do What Well |
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Another step in creating organizational dysfunction is filling positions and functions with warm bodies instead of the people with the best skills for the job.
This is common in small organizations where everyone wears a lot of
hats, in organizations that have grown from small businesses into large
ones without regard for the changing needs of the business, and in
business units acquired by large companies that were once small
companies. Even though this trait is common in smaller organizations,
it can still be found everywhere and can effectively employed in the
largest of corporations.
Does the business need a safety director? That can be assigned to the
receptionist. Does the business need an accountant? Those duties can
be given to the graphic designer. Is advertising needed? Give that
job to the manager of the QC lab. Does the company have a plant under
construction? Both the construction management and the design work can
be done cooperatively by the warehouse supervisor and the lead
salesman. When the copy machine malfunctions, who is the best person
for the job? That’s right – the president is the best person to fix
the copy machine. Why not? He has a set of tools at home for which he
spent good money and hardly ever uses.
OK, so there actually is safety manager and a safety team, a
accountants doing the accounting, a team of marketing specialists doing
the advertising, and engineers that work to design and manage
construction of facilities, among other in-house and contracted
specialties. Is the business on track forever? Well of course it is.
Industries don’t change, new regulations are never enacted, the
competition will forever be the same, and technology has ceased
development. So why would any rational business manager spend good
company money on training? Of course no rational manager would do such
a crazy thing.
Employees are set up to fail by being assigned responsibilities for
which they are not fully qualified or when they are not given ongoing
opportunities to improve the skills that they do have. Sometimes,
brute force of will can make certain ambitious employees somewhat
effective, but leadership will never know how much they may be coming
up short. Often, especially in cases where regulations are involved,
management doesn’t know the shortfalls of the efforts that until they
are slapped with penalties. Employee frustration is prevalent in a
failure-to-train, sink-or-swim environment. What’s more, the company
will rarely be successful or will be successful in spite of itself
because the industry or market is simply so lucrative.
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Dysfunctional Management - 12 Steps 