Recently I published a post in which I listed simple ways of making organizations smarter. I also promised to follow through and elaborate, albeit briefly, about each bullet point.

In this follow up post, I will relate to weeding out slogans and focus on creating focus.

Weeding Out Slogans

Slogans are repeated statements that are hammered into employee’s heads, and when the rubber hits the road, they do not match reality. They confuse, create cynicism, mistrust and alienation. They also make management into laughing stocks.

If a company puts “customer service” on its flag, but each agent needs to open 5 screens per call to give an appropriate answer (on slow servers, to boot) then there is no customer service.

If a company supports “human rights” but sells to Russia, they don’t support human rights. If they support work life balance and expect answers to emails in the evening, they do not support work life balance.

If the Dutch company which constantly promotes diversity doesn’t have a senior manager without a  “van” in his name,  then diversity is a slogan.

If your company states that every employee must “take ownership” but places a ton of bureaucracy on the way to solving problems such as lengthy purchasing processes, then taking of ownership is a slogan.

When a company eliminates slogans until they practice what they preach, they cannot blow smoke up their own bum about their real beliefs. Sales, HR and senior management teams are very prone to double talk. You would be very surprised at how hard it is to eliminate slogans.

Creating Focus

There is air pollution; there is water pollution and there is priority pollution, the later being where everything (nothing) is really truly important when the rubber hits the road.

Only via creating focus, one creates the chance to succeed, and not blame conflicting priorities for pleasing none of the people none of the time.

And I cannot make this clear enough. If there is not enough focus, there is failure. True there may be interim achievements, but poor focus ends up in a shitty culture and failure.

Btw, poor focus is often enabled by phenomena such as “I sent you an email that’s it’s top priority”. Creating focus is not rocket science. It’s easy-but companies don’t like to do it.

I shall follow thru with more elaboration of the original post in the next few weeks.

En haut-going up. En descendent, going down. Yes. A short story of the “elevator ladies” of days gone by. To be more exact, a few nostalgic  words about the elevator ladies at Eaton’s department store in Montreal, Quebec.

First, let me explain who they were. Elevators were not always automatic, but rather operated by actual people. Elevators had two doors-the external and an interior door, which was sort of a meshed metal  door, to prevent people’s clothes from getting caught in closing doors. Elevator ladies operated these doors, pressed floor buttons as well as announced the floor upon arrival. Sometimes, they added what the “floor” was all about.

• Second floor; deuxieme etage; womens’ fashion; mode des femmes
• Basement; sous sol
• Ground floor; rez de chaussee 

The ladies who operated these doors wore a lovely uniform, white gloves, hats and gorgeous stockings. They were of all ages. And sometimes I used to ride the elevators just to hear them make announcements, en anglais et en francais.

As well, I loved to see how these ladies remembered people who took the lift with them. People who had been riding with them for years. “Bonjour M. LaPorte, ca va? Bonjour Madame Schwartz, how ‘r u”? Small conversations would often develop about the weather, or other small talk.

I marveled at the elevator ladies’ encyclopedic knowledge of where to find what. “I am looking for a red thimble” “Sous sol, madame, basement at the rear” Or,” ou on peut trouver une laisse du chien?” Quatrieme etage”. (Where can I find a dog leash? 4th floor).

They knew it all, in English and French.

I read once a paper about job satisfaction, that is, what elevator ladies liked about their job.

They loved the regulars; they loved practicing their English; and most of all, they enjoyed answering questions properly. At no time did they feel that their work was meaningless or that the routine was impacting their “wellness”.

Yes, we can do without this job, long rendered superfluous by technology. But I sure miss the elevator ladies, greeters, newspaper men at crossroads, people who answer the phone, and people, yes people, who make life less alienating.

I must admit that one of these elevator ladies was extremely attractive. Her name was Louise M. I was her regular.

For great pictures of elevator ladies, click here.

I love words. Strange words. Rare words. Swear words. Words in three languages I speak and words in languages I do not understand. Even when does not understand a word, you can learn about its’ meaning from the context.

I especially love words in one language that have no equivalent in another language.

In French there is “connective” word “d’ailleurs”. Speak to a Frenchman or even a French woman, or read a newspaper article, or watch France 24, and that word appears again and again. It has about ten meanings, none of which I can understand. When I try to use the word, I use it improperly, much to my chagrin. D’ailleurs, I will give another example! ?

In Hebrew there an often used untranslatable word: davka. The word is used extremely frequently, in various contexts. Very few non-Hebrew speakers can understand it. Nevertheless, I will davka give it a try.

• In a contrarian fashion. As in, he davka called her at 10 PM, although he knows she goes to bed at this time.
• An unexpected contrast. As in, he davka went to the anti-government demonstration, although he voted for Bibi in the last election.
• Indication of a negative surprise. As in, I travelled half way around the city to get to the License Authority and davka they were closed.
• Indication of a positive surprise. As in “I got the Shingrix vaccine and davka felt fine; my brother was weak some time after he was vaccinated.”

I also have a thing for words that organizations use to show and hide real meaning. Most often strange words and terms both hide and show meaning. The words and terms may be code words. Or they may be words “sui generis”, one of a kind  to describe something that goes on in the organization.

Here are a few examples I have encountered over the past decades.

One t(w)o Five O. This indicates the first five members of the organization who are still around. But they are worth zero, yet hold important positions. It is indicative of management by seniority.

You saw it, you own it. This indicates a culture where in lieu of organizational clarity, issues are owned by champions, who push issues to conclusion. It is indicative of the refusal of an organization to scale.

Test for Basic Functionality.  This means, we know we promised something that can do 500 things, but really can’t. Can it do anything at all? If it can, let’s install it. This is indicative of a highly over committed organization.

Product Expert Troubleshooter. This indicates that there are product issues that very few people can solve, except for a few so called experts. The expertise, however,  often exists only because the product is undocumented, or written in spaghetti code, or those who developed it have left, except for the last Mohican, ie, the product expert troubleshooter.

Client Expectation Management This means that we are screwing our clients in the meantime, so someone needs to “cool the mark” down until we give them something beyond basic functionality.

What does all this mean for the OD consultant. If you use pre-packed OD tools, it means nothing. But if you are old-school OD, I suggest the following.

• Listen closely.
• Try not to translate new terms into your own “language”.
• Learn the context.
• Dig deeper.
• And discover the truth behind the words right under the lamplight.
• Create a dictionary, and verify it with the troops. 

D’ailleurs, if you have any questions on the methodology of creating the dictionary, click the link.

Jacques Lacan approached the unconscious via language. And you do not need to be influenced by Lacan to understand that there is a fascinating connection between our language, our actions and our thoughts.

Put aside the stories and narratives you are told when trying to understand an organization for a moment and listen to the words. You may hear words and phrases exposing the raw nerves of the company’s beliefs and DNA, as it were.

In my work, I often put together a short dictionary of a key phrases that are a part of the company’s vernacular-then work with the company to translate these words into what these words expose, and hide.

Here is an example of how this work is done. Company Y has six terms that repeat themselves in almost all meetings and chats: Challenging; Complex; Urgent; Damage Control; Sandbag; Phased Delivery.

Let’s look at the meaning. Challenging means that something is beyond our capability and/or resources. Complex means that we do not (yet) have a solution. Urgent means what we need to do today, at the expense of everything else. Damage control means catching up with our committments all at once and/or cooling off the customer with sweet talk, discounts or future functionality. Sandbag means to exaggerate the amount of time needed to do something to prevent management tasking you with more work. Phased Delivery means promising one thing, and delivering far less, and catching up in stages. Often the first phase of phased delivery is giving nothing but more promises.

Now imagine a series of discussions in a company where this dictionary is discussed, and certain terms are phased out and replaced by others.

Like the signs I remember on the Montreal Metro: Dit pas “le weekend; dit la fin de semaine. (This encouraged the proper use of the French language)

And thus, over time, language and actions become more accurate and less obtuse, internally and with the client.

Yes with the client as well. Whether this is good or bad is the subject of another post.

Kim Philby, the master-spy for the USSR who was a very senior officer in MI6 in charge of Russian counterintelligence  🙂  said that if you have a very important item that needs to be investigated, it is best given to a junior officer.  Senior officers are not always ready to work hard, they have system perspectives more than event perspectives and they don’t want to shake up the boat.

Philby’s logic is very relevant for organizational problems as well. Via 3 short stories, I shall illustrate this.

Howard is an electrical engineer who wants to leave his job because he’s been offered 600 USD more at a competing firm. Pierre, Howard’s boss, know that it could take up to a year to replace Howard. And if he cannot be replaced, his function will need to be outsourced at a huge cost to an overseas firm. Norma, VP HR, is please that Howard may be leaving because if the organization kowtows to Howard’s demands, the whole salary structure will be shattered.

Sam is a senior software engineer who has been asked to estimate the time need to develop a certain feature. Sam’s time estimate is 4 months for 4 engineers. Sam’s estimates have never been off target by more than 2 weeks. The CEO did not like Sam’s estimate, so he gave it to Ze’ev, Sam’s boss and VP R&D for a second opinion. Ze’ev said the work “can probably get done in 6 weeks, with just a few odds and ends to be cleaned up at the customer site”. When the rubber hit the road, the project took 5 months.

Hadassah, a customer service engineer, is frustrated because spare mechanical parts (needed to fix a broken piece of equipment) are not available due to supply chain issues. Martin, VP Supply Chain has presented an optimistic report that supply chain delays are down 12% in Q2. Hadassah reports that the client will uninstall equipment, and indeed this is what happened.

Yes, the view from below can be a parochial one, with limited scope. But analysis and decisions made at the top can be flawed, distorted and painfully wrong.

The key to getting this right is to solicit input  both from below and above, make decisions NOT necessarily based on hierarchy, but rather on risk mitigation. 

PS and PPS

Thanks to Eike Spengler for the input to the initial draft.

Kim Philby was probably the best spy in modern history. His motive was purely ideological and driven by his abhorence of fascism. I recommend this book for those interested.

Who would have thought that in order to buy a train ticket or movie ticket, board a plane, or set up an appointment with a doctor, or know when your car is ready at the garage after a tune up-you need a telephone.

And the telephone is expensive and needs replacing. Often.

And if you don’t buy a phone, your goose is cooked. You can do nothing. Nada. Rien de tout.

Organizations are same same, just different. Hidden from the new employee hide a series of hurdles, and if you don’t have the right “access platform”, you may be out of luck.

When one joins an organization, you need to acquire a new language. For example, an impossible deadline becomes a challenge; employee dissatisfaction becomes churn rate, piss-poor managers are go-getters, politics is self-advocacy.

It gets worse.

You may be asked to feign agreement, kiss your bosses’ arse, attend meetings and read memos concerned with gender politics. You may even be asked to celebrate events that run against your beliefs.

Eventually like in the  the Beatles Elinor Rigby,  you learn to wear “a face that you keep in a jar at the door”. At times you may feel like a character in Black Mirror.

So no, you do not need to buy a phone. You just need to fake it.

And espouse authenticity.

1. Anyone can work from home as much as they so desire as long as they get their job done.
2. Discourage time “wasted” meetings in which there is, at times, a semi structured agenda where staff merely “chews the fat” from time to time.
3. Use Whatsapp (or other chat platforms) as the main channel of communication.
4. Ensure it’s acceptable for people to check their phones when talking to one another.
5. Set very aggressive goals to bring out the best of people, but ensure the implementation of wellness plans to help manage stress.
6. Build centres of excellence leveraging global capabilities whilst encouraging synergy without ruling out competition.
7. Used digital based shared services to provide HR, travel and logistic support, leveraging global talent in different time zones.
8. Strive for a work life balance except for crashes at client sites, support of strategic clients, board member requests and finance-related crises.
9. Hire staff in the kitchen and parking lot to ensure DEI values are implemented.
10. Never capitulate to salary demands if it breaks the system.
11. Run critical messages by your PR department to polish them up.
12. Acquire innovative companies, and put them under the supervision of your middle management.

I speak 3 languages very well: Hebrew French and English. I can understand articles Spanish (but cannot speak)  and when I hear a conversation in Arabic, I understand the gist most of the time.

However, if I hear Russian, I cannot understand a word. Since the immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel, I hear a lot of Russian. All the time. For decades. But I do not understand one word. And, for whatever reason, I cannot pick it up.

Which started me thinking-what does management hear, and not pick up? Using two French words to explain myself…what does management hear (ecouter), but does not hear and “get it” (entendre).

Here is my try at answering that question:

1) The timetables are very aggressive.  The present schedules are wishful non-thinking.

2) If we release this latest “version” too early, our reputation may take a hit.

3) We cannot recruit because our salary entry level is too low.

4) A few key players are on the net looking for jobs. This is serious. People are our greatest asset.

5) Folks in the latest company we acquired a year ago are checking out mentally.

6) If we do not “sell” this decision to the people on the line, it ain’t gonna happen.

7) Diversity is good for the bottom line.

8) The cooperation between units A and B is not because of role definition: it’s a trust issue.

9) It is very hard to restore trust. If we tell don’t tell the truth to our staff, they won’t trust us for a very long time.

10) After we downsize, the best people in the company will start to look for a job. They fear that they are next.

*Psalms 115 6-7

They have ears, but cannot hear, and noses, but cannot smell.  They have hands, but cannot feel, and feet, but cannot walk; they cannot make a sound.

So much has been written on what effective leaders do and do not do.

Much of what has been written is pie-in-the-sky. Recently I even read something about the selflessness of leaders, which I thought was science fiction or humour.

Leadership is not only impacted by the personality of the leader. 

Leadership is also very much impacted by unrealistic and dangerous expectations of followers. These expectations forge leaders’ behaviour, in the same way that a tweet (as opposed to a fact) impacts the response of many current politicians.

In this brief post, I want to point out the most salient dangerous expectations that followers have from leaders and how the leaders REACT to these expectations and themselves follow the mob.

• Resolve complex issues of what constitutes moral behaviour
• Mitigate ambiguity when it is impossible to do so
• Provide “meaning” for random events
• Recreate a sense of preserving greatness or uniqueness that perhaps never was
• Perfuming pigs
• Focusing hatred externally

And I can go on and on.

We tend to focus on what leaders do to garner influence. But leaders are often led, and kowtow to the desires of the followers for their own ego needs. This type of leadership is very very common. 

I think it is time to talk a bit about the ways followers create dysfunctional leadership with misplaced expectations. And to put all this in a proper cultural perspective.

Oh yes, the cultural context of leadership. How heretic this is for traditional OD which assumes that everyone wants or needs democracy. Egypt, Yemen, Eye-raq, Afghanistan, Russia, China.

But that is another story, widely addressed in other blog posts and articles of mine.