Feeling the pressure to identify all your business' problems?
Growth Advisor asks their CEO clients… “If YOU don’t identify and raise the issues you’ve just described, who else in your business does?”
How many of your people walk past issues, mistakes, errors without doing something about it?
A couple of recent experiences got me thinking about the above-mentioned question…
Photo 1 is a construction site around the corner from where I live. Just in case it's not clear, the on-site toilet (the yellow thing in the photo) rests on a 20 degree angle. It had been like that for more than 2 weeks! I can't imagine anyone would have too much fun in there, and I wasn't game enough to look in there!
How many trades and supervisors do you think would have walked straight past this over the last 2 weeks? I don't know the answer, but I suspect...PLENTY!!
I also just stayed at a beautiful hotel for a client’s annual retreat. The stay was magnificent – the strategy session was even better😊 . And yet, I noticed this toilet-roll holder in my room – refer photo 2. I would like to say it didn’t bother me, but it did. But also, I know for a fact that EVERY day the house-keeping service would see that toilet-roll holder as they either replace the toilet roll or fold and stamp it to give that “premium” appearance. But for some reasons the house-keepers remain tolerant to it being crooked! I actually asked if they had told their maintenance team to rectify it. They replied “no”. I got the "why would we?" kind of look...
Now there may well be back-stories in both these instance, but they did get me thinking about our workplaces, and the culture and standards that exist inside our organisations.
My question for you is...how do your people respond when they see something happening that is wrong, dangerous, or simply unacceptable?
Hopefully, your culture is one that "passers by" can raise these things in the moment, people don't get defensive, they appreciate the feedback, and the necessary rectification is made. As a flow-on from this, there are even some sort of learnings that are captured and shared across all functions.
I would also hope that your people are actually INTOLERANT of these types of instances. They should all be gate-keepers for your/their business, your/their brand, your/their level of service, such that it delivers to your/their customers the product and/or service standards they expect AND deserve. Anything that endangers this from happening could be called out. There should be channels in place to do this, swiftly and respectfully.
Afterall, this is what high performance cultures do.
Speaking with numerous CEOs and execs about this, they feel an enormous pressure having to walk the floor and/or interrupt meetings, and unfortunately point out things that seem to be out of place, unacceptable etc. Whilst I totally support the Management By Walking Around (MBWA) principle, the pressure on the CEO to be the guardian and gatekeeper is unnecessary. That load should be spread across the company. The spread of the load is a total reflection of the culture that is alive in your business today.
We believe you can create a culture that picks up these things promptly. Treat them positively, rectify them, learn from them, and improve your business and its ability to grow and thrive. Done well, this can be a source of huge amounts of positivity, learning, personal development, and innovation.
