Demoralized workers do not do great work. Organizations do not become remarkable with demoralized staff. Customers do not love their experience with demoralized employees. Yet we find managers catalyzing demoralizing behavior every day.

In the last couple of weeks we saw:

• Bank of America announce it will layoff 30,000 employees
• The Chairman of the Board of Yahoo firing the CEO over the telephone
• H-P firing it’s 3^rd CEO – the latest one lasting 11 months

And what do workers do when faced with these issues?

• They actively look to leave the company, and the best one’s do
• They hunker down, stay out of the way, and just do what they are told to do – keeping as low a profile as possible
• They become disruptive
• They decide to look better than others and do whatever it takes to discredit their colleagues – and interject an “every person for themselves” mentality, which further deteriorates the culture

And the managers are greatly hindered in their ability to help, basically for two key reasons: 1- many of them are in exactly the same position as the workers, and/or 2- they tend to discount the good advice of others, meaning power can hinder willingness to listen. And regarding this point, the Wall Street Journal (9/19/11) reported that a recent study to be published in the November issue of journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes found:

“That the more power the employees (managers) had the less likely

they were to take co-workers advice. The reason: Powerful

individuals held inflated confidence in their own judgments,

which led them to discount even good advice from others.”

So we see poor leadership, demoralized workers and managers who discount good advice from others. Now the best way to look at this is – that’s your competition. Your competition has a reasonable probability of being a dysfunctional organization. And dysfunctional organizations are not – and cannot be remarkable.

So, do you know how your employees are doing; what they feel and believe about the organization and about their managers (including you)? If you don’t, you should! Don’t be one of those managers with an inflated confidence believing you have it all figured out. Motivated, aligned and satisfied employees represent a significant differentiator in the marketplace. How strong is your differentiation?

For more information on talent management, see our blogs, free articles, white papers and videos at: www.kubicalaforestconsulting.com

Copyright 2011 Kubica LaForest Consulting

You would think that as a company gets bigger and more sophisticated, we can learn something positive from them. Well that is not the case with Yahoo. Yahoo has been in the news for: firing its CEO (via a phone call), having a major investor, Third Point LLC, call for the ouster of the Board Chairman and some board members, trying to decide if they want to sell the company, what strategy would be best, and how they will replace the CEO.

So in summary: little to no clear strategy, no succession plan, and a poor example of how to fire an employee – to name only three issues.

Companies can delude themselves into thinking they are doing better than they are. They can flit from one strategy to another in an attempt to recover a sub-performing company. But how could Yahoo’s Board do this when the facts show they had 4 CEOs in 4 years, they lost 7 out of their top 10 display ad sales people, they failed to “jump-start its core display advertising business”, weren’t aggressive in dealing with the explosive growth of social networks, and opted out of the search advertising market.

Why do we go into this detail? Because none of it should have been a surprise to the Board. Problems like this don’t suddenly appear; they have an annoying way of meandering their way along. Perhaps a good description is the story of the frog that is placed in a pot of water. The heat is turned up slowly, but tolerated, until finally the water starts to boil and the frog dies. The water meandered its way to boiling, and the frog never noticed.

Jim Collins wrote and excellent book on How the Mighty Fall (2009) that provides insight on how a Yahoo event could happen.

As a business owner, this is an important learning moment. What you are learning, however, is what not to do. And it reinforces why it’s so important to have a strategic direction, why a succession plan makes sense, why analytics are important. It’s all about the basics – something Yahoo apparently forgot.

For more information on business growth see our articles, white papers and videos at: www.kubicalaforestconsulting.com

Copyright 2011 Kubica LaForest Consulting

In Monday’s Blog we wrote about evidence-based management and the four areas every business needs to focus on to succeed (http://www.kubicalaforestconsulting.com/blog/?p=590).

Realistically, and through our experience working with businesses, far too few actually concentrate on ensuring each of these four areas are addressed. Why you may wonder, as do we, considering that the evidence on successful business start-ups is clear. The answer is embarrassingly simple: some people starting new business are unaware of the evidence or are aware of it but feel they are different. Well we have unfortunately news for you – your business will fail. It’s like when a Hurricane hits, which it did in the northeast this past weekend; if you are unprepared, bad things are likely to happen to you and/or your property. The Hurricane doesn’t care who you are or how confident you are that you will escape harm. Hurricanes do what they do.

Markets are much the same. Your market doesn’t care who you are or how confident you are of success. If you’re unprepared, harm will come to your business.

Whether you are just starting your business, or have recently started it and want to be sure it’s on the right track toward growth, we suggest you take these Four Steps:

1) Conduct an in-depth strategic vision/planning session that includes:

a. Identify the market need for your product or service

b. How you will fund your business

c. Sales strategy: Define your market and how you will sell into that market (your branding strategy is a key component of this step)

d. Understand how you will deliver on your sales promise (this is defined as fulfillment and fulfillment is driven by your culture)

e. Define a clear “ideal scene” for what your successful business will be like. Cameron Herald, in his book Double Double, explains this as painting a three year picture to help you build instinct for your successful business.

2) Focus – on a few actions initially and do them well

3) Look at the evidence – keep an open mind

4) Implement – do what you say you are going to do – take action, monitor and course correct according to evidence.

When starting or growing a business, differentiate yourself, and the best way to initially differentiate yourself is by using evidence-based management to start you strong.

For more information on business growth see our videos, articles and white papers at: www.kubicalaforestconsulting.com

Copyright 2011 Kubica LaForest Consulting