Visionary Or Crazy?

The key to management is to get rid of the managers.

The key to getting work done on time is to stop wearing a watch.

The best way to invest corporate profits is to give them to the employees.

The purpose of work is not to make money. The purpose of work is to make the workers,
whether working stiffs or top executives, feel good about life.

Ricardo Semler (CEO Semco, author of "The Seven Day Weekend")

A New Thread: Fear, Organizations & Potential

As much as better processes, such as sales processes, can help an organization improve short-term results, the best strategy for systemic long-term growth depends entirely upon your people and management philosophies. For example - do you reward risks and failure, or punish them? (You might say you reward risks, but what have your actions communicated to your organization? What did you do to the last person who tried something new and failed?)

In addition to simple sales improvement ideas, I believe cultural and organizational ideas can set the stage for even more fundamental, long-term success of a team or company. However, from my personal experience, I know people (like yourself) will fall into one of three categories:

a) Believer. "Yes!" You get it and connect with these new ideas. You see how they can benefit your organization and are willing to try some out,
b) Skeptic. "No way Jose." You think these ideas are impractical because "this isn't how things work in the real world," or you're
c) Agnostic. "Where's the proof?" You aren't sure about all this yet, but it's intriguing enough to keep reading about it, perhaps even try something at some point if it really seems relevant to a particular situation you're facing and there is some proof of success.

Classic corporate culture is, at its root, based on fear and insecurity (I'm speaking in generalizations here, so yes I realize there are exceptions). This fear shows up symptomatically in ways such as:
*Insecurity (I'm afraid of what people or my boss will think of the truth, so I have to massage it)
*Secrecy (I'm afraid that if this something is known, either to coworkers or other companies, it might hurt me)
*Parent-child relationships (I'm afraid to let you do something different than what I want. I say "no" a lot)
*Control (I'm uncomfortable without control)
*Denial (Failure cannot happen; failure is unacceptable)

Just as someone who's individual personality is fearful, paranoid and in denial can't live up to their full potential, these same values in a corporation holds back the entire organization's potential and growth.

More to come, but if this first post strikes a chord, send me a note (you can do that through the email link in my Blogger profile)