Great People Works

All great companies need great leadership at the top of the organization, but great leaders also know that one of their responsibilities is to grow more great leaders and managers throughout their organization. As organizations grow in size from small to large they need increased structure and processes to identify, attract and retain future leaders and mangers.

When an organization has strong leadership at the top but an absence of strong leadership throughout the organization it may remain top-focused. Nothing really happens of significance if the top-level of management does not initiate or strongly support the introduction of new systems, processes or methodologies. An organization that is too top-focused is often under-performing because the top level of management maintains too much control over the day-to-day management of the organization and simply cannot be accessible to the volume and variety of new ideas possible in a global environment. Workers tire of coming up with new ideas or changes that might improve results if they do not think the people at the top of the organization will approve of it and similarly, if it is too difficult to even gain access to these leaders to propose ideas and gain the necessary approvals or funding. It becomes an environment of "groupthink" with everyone trying to follow what they think the "group" at the top expects. The company may survive a long time in this fashion but eventually it is doomed to failure if it is not growing intelligently and encouraging worker involvement, new leaders to step forward and new managers to find more effective ways to manage throughout the organization.

Strong organizations use intelligent, data-driven processes in all of their decision-making, especially their people decisions. Numerous studies have shown that we, as human beings make a lot of decisions based on intuition, gut feelings and a variety of filtering mechanisms that are consistently wrong and often clearly misguided. Job interviews is a good example where a significant volume of research has shown that interviews generally support impressions that were either made in the first interview or from a resume and job history review. The interviewer may ask skilled, clever questions but in reality, they made up their mind in the first four and a half minutes of the interview. Worse yet, interviews may have little to do with identifying the key success behaviors necessary for success on the job or the basic interests of the interviewee that will keep them engaged on the job.

What is apparent from great organizations is that they rely on important, proven metrics and intelligent processes throughout the organization, from six sigma on the factory floor to quality processes in customer service and smart human resources solutions to assess potential job candidates, skill competencies, behavioral characteristics and future potential. They consistently work to train, coach and develop great leaders in the organization and it pays off handsomely. The result is much like the Oompa Loompa in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" where everybody is working smartly to keep the factory running efficiently, resolve problems and produce great chocolate to please their customers; while the most important asset is the people running the factory. At the end of the movie we realize that Charlie, a young customer, was being groomed for top management through a variety of trials and tests form the moment he entered the factory. But in real life it doesn't have to be that hard.

To maximize the return on your greatest asset give me a call and let's talk. Phone Gregg at: 972.221.3504.