Just as an explorer needs markers to find their way,
so do organizations. If you have studied
the Lewis and Clark expedition you will know that Clark was able to chart their
course extremely accurately considering the instruments he had to work
with. I want to share some markers with
respect to organizations and how you can “translate” them into a better
understanding of what they indicate about the organization.
We
can’t hire you because you are overqualified—this statement
has become ubiquitous in many organizations and industry groups. So what does this really mean? Possibilities include;
· We
know that we are a “status quo” organization and you would become quickly bored
or frustrated by the lack of organizational and personal growth potential.
· People
want to be part of a winning team and this team is not one.
· An
organization that espouses this “you are overqualified” statement is in a slow
(or fast) decline in performance and competitiveness.
· If
you are a high powered applicant, be thankful when they tell you that you are
overqualified. That allows you to
conclude that their leadership is weak and you wouldn’t want to work there
anyway.
If
only we could eliminate the unfair competition
or lack of support from . . . –this tells you that
they are more interested in confessing that their poor performance is someone
else’s fault than in facing the reality of their own performance problems. You can only use that argument with a
straight face after you are sure you have perfected your own performance to its
fullest and have no room to improve without removing the impediment you want to
complain about.
We’ve
been in business for decades and see no need to change our process now—this
is a sure indication that this organization is doomed. There is only one constant in the world and
that is change. You either face it taking
it as an opportunity or you are victimized by it.
We
are the best so now we can relax—oops! This reminds me of a story about Mack Trucks
back in the first half of the twentieth century. They had designed a product line that was the
current state of the art and considerably ahead of that of any competitor. They were so confident that they shut down
their design function because they thought no one would ever be able to do
better than they had done. They were
wrong and squandered their lead causing much pain as they tried to restart
development, something they should have kept all along.
We
have a nice work environment because we do not allow arguments or
disagreements—oh, my goodness, this is political
correctness run amok. Bossidy and Charan
in their best selling management book Execution,
the discipline of getting things done discuss the need for “robust dialog”
if you aspire to creating a “performance” organization. What they are saying is that you must allow and
encourage people to disagree vigorously so that the “truth” needed for good
decisions, is exposed. Organizations
that suppress the truth through political correctness and its brother Group
Think are doomed to poor performance because their “be nice” ethic suppresses
the lifeblood (truth) they need to succeed.
As
a successful manager of high performing teams I can say that the first one; we
can’t hire you because you are overqualified is the most ridiculous to me. When I had an opening I looked for the best
qualified person I could find, even someone who could compete with me and
perhaps beat me out. You need strong
people to perform well and hiring the best gives you the opportunity to grow
the organization quickly to the point where even the “overqualified” need to
grow with it. A good definition of the
duty of a leader is, “A leader is
responsible to provide a work climate in which everyone has a chance to grow
and mature as individuals, as members of a group by satisfying their own needs,
while working for the success of the organization.”
Too,
the truth suppression of political correctness and Group Think guarantee an
organization will not be able to perform well.
Kill them both; RIP. Is the goal
to be nice or to perform the mission at an excellent level? You can’t have both all of the time. You can be nice much of the time but there
are times when you can’t if you want to perform. I remember stories of Jimmy David the
defensive back for the Detroit Lions championship teams of the 1950s. His teammates told of hating him in practice
because he was so hardnosed in his tackling. But they also said they loved him
in the games when he made great plays regularly. If you don’t practice with passion you can’t
perform with passion.
Keep
these markers in mind when assessing an organization to work for, invest in or
buy a product or service from.
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