Keeping the corporate eye on the corporate ball

Dear Bob ... As I arrived at work today I had the startling revelation as to what's wrong with the place I work. Upper management tries to have a company meeting every month to talk about numbers, and recent activity that important to the company. Typically as part of these almost monthly meetings they bring up new things we are going to be doing. A not so recent example was an announcement that the company was

Dear Bob ...

As I arrived at work today I had the startling revelation as to what's wrong with the place I work.

Upper management tries to have a company meeting every month to talk about numbers, and recent activity that important to the company. Typically as part of these almost monthly meetings they bring up new things we are going to be doing. A not so recent example was an announcement that the company was going to issue yellow cards to each employee to be displayed when an employee received a comment that they felt was disparaging or offensive. There was a pretty big deal made about this initiative, at least until they got around to spending the $100 for the yellow cards. It never happened.

We moved to a new location last fall and one of the promises made at the first meeting after we moved is that we'd be building a deck outside of the lunch room so that employee's could eat outside when the weather was nice. Reasonable weather for eating outside is soon drawing to a close, no deck.

There have been many other business or product related activities that have received attention until something else grabs focus and all that has gone before is quickly forgotten. The lack of corporate focus has driven many of the employees to leave for better pastures.

Is there some form of corporate Ritalin that helps a company keep focused on what they are doing and saying?

- Wanting to finish something

Dear Wanting ...

This situation is as common as dirt, and as hard to get rid of. To answer your core question: It's a challenge that's easily solved, except that it's impossible to solve. What I mean is that other than the difficulty of changing the CEO's behavior, which is the result of something fairly basic in his character, there's nothing to it.

The root cause of the issue almost certainly is that the CEO has lots of great ideas, and has succeeded through his ability to turn his ideas into corporate action. When the company was young it was okay - it translated to an ability to be nimble, to product and service features, and to a lot of energy.

Now that the company has stabilized and grown, the CEO has more time to think and is less occupied in day-to-day activities. The result: More ideas, each of which is the priority until the next one comes up.

Smart executives who have this tendency generally engage a Chief Operating Officer or Chief of Staff to buffer the company from the onslaught of opportunity, and help the executive stay focused on what's really important. They constantly remind the executive that success isn't the result of who has the most brilliant ideas - it's the result of who executes a few brilliant ideas best.

Many executives, though, never figure this out about themselves, or figure that because they're the big shot it's up to everyone else to make it work. The result, sadly, is Management by Strategic Whim ... and, inevitably, the eventual defection of the best staff to other companies that aren't afflicted by the problem.

- Bob