have rethought, redesigned, and reoriented the time issues.
4. Challenge the roles and functions of your organization. How can you redefine roles to make them more challenging?
For example, examine your organization’s structure. Can you get more done through strategic partnerships and outsourcing?
B AD A TTITUDES : H OW O RGANIZATIONS G ET
Most organizations are successful to some degree in spite of their management, not because of its behavior. Managers in timid companies get in the way of their own success because they tend to think small, stay in a low-performance comfort zone, and avoid risks. This mediocre behavior is generally acceptable in the average American corporation where the “industry average” is the perfor- mance benchmark. If an industry average growth is 10 percent, a timid company is satisfied with getting close to that mark. Their story at year’s end is a glowing admission of limited thinking.
Praises and self-congratulations are made for setting and meeting average performance goals. Such self-limiting behavior creates mediocre management.
Thinking small is an extremely limiting managerial behavior.
With few exceptions, most managers today are trained with a num- bers mentality that leads to thinking inside a box. Words such as practical, reasonable, and attainable are replete in our business lan- guage. Managers brag about making money the old-fashioned way;
they earn it one dollar at a time. Executives take pride that their companies are conservative, as if working at less than full potential is a badge of distinction. Reaching for the stars is something rele- gated to a handful of entrepreneurs.
The most interesting story I can tell you about thinking small and allowing timidity to run rampant involves a banking corpora- tion. A business partner and I had developed a relationship with a large state association. Keep in mind this was only one state out of fifty, so the potential to expand our services was staggering in mag- nitude. This association wanted us to help them develop a credit card for their membership. We gathered the facts, did an analysis, and developed a business case. The information was pretty exciting, so we approached the banking corporation with the plan. After sev- eral successful meetings between the bank and the association we ran into an unexpected barrier. When the bank’s project manager briefed executives they rejected the plan. Their stated reason was interesting, to say the least. It was, “We’re not sure this credit card business isn’t just a fad. We don’t have a card, and we’re not sure that cards are a good line of business.”
This bank’s rejection of the business case was not based on research into the card business and a subsequent management busi- ness decision to stay out of the competition. The bank’s manage- ment had never investigated the concept at all.
Ironically, the month before we presented our business case, I counted nine unsolicited credit card offers that came across my desk. If the credit card business was a poor venture I wondered why so many people were in the game. While writing this chapter, I decided to check out my suspicions on credit cards. I wanted to see if the fad had passed. For a one-month period we kept a few unso- licited cards that came into our office. Here is what we received (and this list doesn’t even include the many phone calls we had for the same service):
■ Orvis Conservation Platinum Visa Card
■ NRA MasterCard
■ FCC National Bank Gold MasterCard
■ FCC National Bank First Card Platinum Visa
■ American Express Small Business Services Corporate Option Platinum
■ City Bank & US Airways Platinum Visa
I guess these are businesses that think the card business might be a worthy venture after all.
Thinking small also encourages another destructive behavior.
Being conservative is safe, comfortable, and attracts little attention to poor individual performance. Using team-generated, conserva- tive numbers makes it easy for an average performer to hide in the management crowd. With the current emphasis on using teams, it becomes easy for group dynamics to become a screen for limited individual thinking. Bold thinkers stand out in a crowd where the group norm is a safe, conservative approach to business goals.
Average thinkers also hide in that same crowd. But the blame for misusing a group doesn’t just rest on the individual. Much of it can
be linked to the training and skills of those responsible for creating and leading those management teams.
Seldom do senior managers have the necessary sophisticated group skills to create a total team of bold thinkers. The fine art of group dynamics is not taught as a part of our formal education. The average manager in corporate America cannot even run an effective meeting, the simplest demonstration of group dynamics skill. Why should we expect managers to be able to orchestrate, with virtuoso ability, the complex and intricate processes of humans interacting in business groups? Without group skills, team mentality at many organizations actually becomes a vehicle to encourage lackluster performance.
The antidote for timidity in planning is to think big and out- side of the box. Consider the following planning techniques:
■ Eliminate the use of “industry averages.” You should know what they are but not allow them to become the basis for performance or goal setting. To use them as benchmarks for higher performance is fine. Just don’t let them become de facto ceilings.
■ Plan as a team. With effective team management you can create the synergy necessary to overcome the pitfalls of committees and other dysfunctional groups. By using team planning, you can tap into a wealth of intellectual capital that may be otherwise missed.