Loyd Rawls

I don’t seem to be getting all I should out of my management team, what could be the problem?
April 2, 2008

Quality, dependable and trustworthy managers are critical components to the pursuit of achieving your business succession dreams.

Fundamentally, the achievement of strategic goals is directly dependent upon manager buy-in of the vision, mission and values of the business leaders. I universally recommend that managers take part in strategic planning because I believe there is zero virtue in assuming management will effectively follow any leadership they do not respect.

Unfortunately, there are times when you may be confused due to a perceived disconnect between leadership and the production of your firms products and/or services. Regardless of how well you have articulated your vision, mission and values, the quality or volume of your products and/or services may never fulfill your expectations. Management meetings resemble high school pep rallies with all managers expressing agreement, buy-in and acceptance, but mysteriously somewhere between the pep rally and deployment a wheel falls off the wagon and you are standing around the wreckage, scratching your head trying to figure out what is going on. The recurring questions are like nightmares:

• What am I doing wrong?
• What it is about doing right that my managers don’t get?
• Who am I dealing with?

Allow me to weigh in on who you may be dealing with. In some cases, you may be encountering what I refer to as a “Management Terrorist.” I am not referring to zealots with C-4 explosives strapped around their body, but, as you will testify, the havoc, disillusionment, disunity and depression created by one or more of these imbedded anarchists can create astonishing terror upon business performance, organizational moral, business value and your goals for Succession Success.

To clarify, a management terrorist is defined as any manager who actively and emotionally professes a buy-in and belief in the expressed vision, mission and values, but believes otherwise in his/her heart. They lack integrity and they become terrorists because regardless of what a manager expresses in pep rallies, the inner feelings and beliefs dictate actions when no one is looking. The most damaging circumstance is when pleaser personality managers are terrorists and don’t even know it!

Identifying, reconciling or eliminating management terrorists is essential to building business value and ensuring long-term business success, which we will focus on in my next 2 postings.

Posted by Loyd Rawls on April 2, 2008 | Comments (0)