The Business Health Check

Influential senior managers are in their last jobs with little desire or incentive to rock the boat. As a result, those that want to change or improve things are viewed with suspicion and their efforts are dismissed, frustrated or blocked.

People who no longer have a job are kept on, sometimes with little or nothing to do.

Confidence in the leadership is diminishing and may even be challenged.

Managers are reluctant to develop their people for fear of creating rivals.

There are an increasing number of customer-related problems: for example, they may complain more, fewer new customers are buying, marketing costs are increasing or cross-sales are flat or declining.

Employees get little or no feedback on their performance.

Needless bureaucracy and obstructive administrative processes slow rather than support the real business of the organization.

Internal conflicts (such as those between teams or departments) are not confronted and these escalate.

Rumours and gossip abound.

New starters are left to ‘sink or swim’. Induction is seen as an event and not a process.

Individuals feel unappreciated or unrewarded in relation to their specific contribution and effort.

There is no sense of urgency where there should be.

New ideas are suppressed by insecure managers who feel they must be the source of all that is creative and praiseworthy.

Decisions are taken without consultation or consideration of those most affected – and no thought is given to the fact that people will support what they helped to create.

It takes too long between deciding to do something and implementing the decision.

Rules and procedures are openly flaunted with impunity.

The purpose of the organization is unclear, confused on inconsistent – or senior managers have very different views about priorities and the best way forward. This confusion is passed down with adverse operational effects.

Too many people play the ‘that’s not my job’ game – doing the bare minimum and displaying a lack of concern for their colleagues.  

Roles and responsibilities are unclear or overlap.

Relatively minor decisions are made at higher levels than is sensible. Employees at all levels are unempowered and need to refer to a higher authority.

Praise is rare, particularly from senior managers, who if ever seen are felt to be remote and uncaring.

People in one part of the organization have no idea what other parts do – nor do they care enough to find out.

Meetings proliferate, often without purpose or structure, and too little happens as a result. Consequently, those who take part do not feel they were a good use of time.

There is little or no enthusiasm for learning and development, especially amongst senior managers who give a poor example, and appear to know it all.

Training courses are not based on learning and development needs. Also, training and development are amongst the first cuts as it is viewed as a cost, and not an added-value benefit.

Incompetent people keep each others’ company to moan and groan. Meanwhile, ‘better’ people gather together in the same way, creating self-sustaining tensions.

Things move so fast that nothing stands still and energy is dissipated and wasted. The result is that efforts and initiatives lack any real impact or benefit.

A blame culture stifles innovation and discourages people from taking personal responsibility. (Do people say "It wasn’t my fault"?)

Recruiters take on people in their own image – often out of a desire to maintain the status quo, a fear of the unknown, or prejudice.

Genuine efforts to change things for the better are drowned out by a hard core of moaners and negatively-minded people who are never confronted.

In the opinion of employees, redundancies are managed badly, with lasting negative effects.

Fads or quick fixes are seen as a means of confronting major issues – and they are never sustained.

There is little support, and more likely cynicism, for those who return from training events.

A major distinction exists between success and effectiveness within the organization. Consequently, successful people may well not be effective, and effective people are neither recognised or rewarded (and unlikely to achieve success in the future).

Capable, competent people leave without making the positive contribution they wanted, and they often end up achieving their ambitions with a competitor.

Staff feel under-valued to the point that this gets in the way of performance.

Cost-cutting measures are imposed, often without warning. These are felt by many to be unfair and unlikely to make any lasting significant effect.

An immense amount of time within the organization is wasted.

Willing horses are overloaded with work because they are dependable, while unreliable people are given less or nothing to do, because they can’t be trusted to do it right.  

Strong financial performance discourages any serious effort to anticipate future demands and to identify deep-rooted leadership issues.

There is little goal-setting or measurement of performance issues. Also, goals are not personally targeted – so nobody is responsible when these are not achieved.

The firm’s structure encourages a ‘dead man’s shoes’ syndrome, with little or no promotion opportunities or efforts at genuine succession planning.

People within the organization don’t feel good and few, if any, are having fun. (This may be due to many things such as insecurity and uncertainty over future work.)

The organization is dependant upon one or a small number of customers or suppliers.

Employees pursue their own goals and interests ahead of those of the organization.

Empire building and internal politics get seriously in the way of operational performance. People, in numbers that matter, put effort into making life harder for colleagues, not better.

Too many people new to the organization, with important roles and contributions to make, seek to replicate their recent past without consideration of how different things are in their current role.

The organization, driven by its senior managers, behaves in a way disproportionate to its size. This means small organization take on the worst traits of much bigger ones, and that genuinely big organization think and act in a way that makes the most of their size.

At the first sign of financial and commercial difficulties, people are seen as expendable short-term costs, despite well-publicised declarations to the contrary. Redundancies are announced reactively, with poor communication and little or no consideration of the medium or long-term effects.

Reports and investigations are commissioned, often at great cost, yet recommendations are ‘yes butted’, so little or nothing changes for the better.

More managerial tiers exist than are necessary.

Scapegoats are sought to blame for things that go wrong – inhibiting creativity and learning.

Past glories are revelled in, at collective or individual levels.

Advertised posts attract few if any applicants. Key posts have to be re-advertised and the calibre or recruit sought is rarely found.

There is inequality of opportunity so the full potential of both current and prospective employees is nothing like exploited fully.

When attacked – for instance in the press – little or no effort is made in defence. In addition, proactive positive publicity is rare.

When things go very wrong, senior management feel no-one is to blame, perhaps even stressing their inability to influence key events and issues.

There is a culture of ‘acceptable under-performance’ – where ‘that’s good enough’ is the norm, with too little effort made to do things as well as they can be done.

Restructuring takes place too frequently, creating confusion and chaos, and meaning key functions or personnel are not settled for long enough to be effective.

There are too many or too few support staff backing up operational employees.

The absence of a key individual (or a small number of people) means that key decisions or activities just don’t happen.

Senior executives look after themselves at the expense of others, and the long term is rarely (if ever) considered.

Grudges linger and sometimes result in a settling of old scores – often to the detriment of efficiency and effectiveness.

Succession planning is non-existent meaning that few people are being prepared for key positions in the future.

Employees, competent or otherwise, are reluctant to leave an organization that will pay them substantial redundancy if they just stay on for a little longer. This means those that contribute little and those that really want to move on end up staying on, as to leave on would cost them money.

Change, if it happens at all, is reactive, in response to events, and rarely, if ever, proactive.

Customer complaints are taken personally, or dismissed as the biased views of a few unrepresentative individuals.

There is inequality of opportunity, for instance, regarding access to learning and development.

Too many people do not earn the value of their salary or wage, in terms of the contribution they make to profit or effectiveness.

Income generation is confused with profitability. The true sources of value creation for customers are not sufficiently well known, which can cause a focus on the wrong activities.

Employees are unaware of, and may not care about, their legal duties and responsibilities.

Key managers are rarely seen, creating a feeling of detachment from their colleagues.

People doing the same job are rewarded differently, and in a way that is way to be unfair.

Systems and procedures are administered rigidly, without the flexibility that both employees and customers expect and need.

Stressed people keep this to themselves, fearful of the consequences of making it known that they need help.

Empowerment at best is a pronouncement, not a practice. Frontline people are afraid of making decisions without seeking approval, slowing actions and irritating customers.

Employees are ‘managed’ or judged by people not competent or credible to do so.

Problem people or issues are left untouched. Conflict is avoided at all costs, instead of being managed positively.

Former employees wouldn’t return for any money.

Employees talk about the organization in terms of ‘them’ and ‘they’ instead of ‘we’ and ‘us’.

Managers only manage people as well as they themselves are managed – too often not very well. This means a negative spiral of poor management develops and it is hard to break.

Hidden agendas proliferate and internal politics drain time and energy.

The arrival of really effective, ‘wave-making’ people is treated with derision by a significant number of people who decide to wait for things to revert to normal.

Employees are asked to do things near to, or beyond the limits of their ability without the support and encouragement they need.

Senior managers abuse their positions (in the eyes of employees).

Training and development is not linked to individual needs and not enough thought is given to the design of events.

Valuable, objective sources of advice and help are ignored and this may be coupled with a denial of the issues that need resolving.

Key roles and activities are sub-contracted, meaning control of quality or delivery is difficult to maintain.

Success breeds failure – good times are enjoyed too much, and little preparation is made for the inevitable harder years to come. These then take the organization and its key managers by surprise, exposing weaknesses and inadequacies.

Bullying and harassment, whether subtle or otherwise is not confronted.