In Monday’s Blog we addressed the issue of undiscussables in organizations. In our experience, this is a topic we do not hear discussed much (no humor intended), but it should be. In fact to improve performance and respond positively and quickly to competitive challenges, it must be.

So how do you address the undiscussables in organizations when these issues are undiscussable – through evidence and gentle persistence.

If you are the CEO and wonder or are concerned that the inability to discuss certain issues exists in your organization, we suggest that you test your assumption.

You do this by:

• Determining how you’re positioned in the marketplace
• Assessing how well your internal processes function
• Conducting a financial risk assessment
• Conducting an employee survey

This will provide you with objective evidence on how your company is performing. And for obvious reasons this should not be done by anyone working within your organizations or by anyone who would like to work in your organization. In truth, doing this takes courage – courage to face what you may not have been willing to face in the past.

If you are not the CEO or owner, your approach will be different. But you have a responsibility (if you believe that the organization is not performing nearly as well as it could) to step forward and raise awareness.

You do this by:

• Presenting your ideas, plans, recommendations and suggestions with solid evidence to support your position
• Not openly challenging your boss or the other senior people in the company
• Being respectfully persistent

This will enable you to demonstrate improvement opportunities. We advise being respectful, persistent and not challenging leadership openly for obvious reasons. Senior people get to senior positions in all organizations because they represent the culture. And if the culture supports the undiscussables, challenging it openly can be dangerous to your career. Educating the senior leaders with facts has a chance for success.

Not all leaders will want to do what it takes to succeed. That is simply a business fact. But others will, and they will be the ones that do not tolerate undiscussables in their organization.

Copyright 2010 Kubica and LaForest

Have you ever heard any of these before?

• We’re glad you’re here, we need an outsider’s perspective
• If you have something to say, speak up and say it, we value open communication

What happened when you tried it? Well in our experience it probably didn’t work out too well for you. Why, because there are some issues and situations in an organization that are just not discussable – and discussing them violates an organizational norm. And yes, even though you were “encouraged” to speak up.

To improve, organizations need to confront reality – the changing market conditions for their products or services, their position within the market, new competitors who have products and services that are disruptive in the market, poor performers within the organization, poor systems and processes.

Leaders need to address impediments to organizational improvement. And to do this they need evidence and the ability to discuss and debate the evidence and make a decision with the intent to improve performance. But when these issues are not discussable, it is impossible to gather evidence. Unfortunately, what ends up being gathered are myths – reinforcing how things are just fine or just temporary setbacks.

All organizations (both large and small) are vulnerable. We hear: we have been successful thus far, there is no reason we won’t continue to be successful. This spoken as the competition is gaining a foothold in their market (i.e. Wal-Mart’s disruptive impact on small town businesses). Who would ever stand in a “cattle line” to board a plane (spoken by more than one airline about Southwest)? How long did it take the newspaper industry to realize its position in the marketplace was changing forever?  We see the book publishing industry scrambling to figure out how to deal with eBooks and the burgeoning self-publishing industry. Clayton Christensen gave us some insights into the consequences of the undiscussables in his book the Innovator’ s Dilemma.

You cannot create innovations nor can you respond to them effectively in an organization where undiscussables exists – or worse where the mere suggestion that there may be undiscussables is – undiscussable.

In Thursday’s Quick Tips we will give you specific examples of undiscussables and ways you can deal with them.

Copyright 2010 Kubica and LaForest