Does Your Team Already Have the Answers?

Although I’m not a big TV watcher, I’ll admit to one guilty pleasure: reality shows such as Kitchen Nightmares and Bar Rescue, where celebrity experts are brought in to counsel failing businesses. What I find especially entertaining is how different businesses in different situations are remediated using the same approach every time.

As a newcomer to the business, the first thing the celebrity expert does is A) tell the boss to take the day off, and then B) lock himself in a room with the employees and ask them why the business is struggling. Invariably, once the employees relax and let go of their fear of communicating, they are able to give a thorough inventory of the problems contributing to the business woes, and even identify the root causes and offer suggested solutions.

The celebrity expert, largely from this information, is able to effect a positive transformation in just in a matter of days, simply by taking action on it. And to think they get paid a lot of money for this!

This seems amusing when we see it on TV, but in reality this situation exists everywhere. I have observed this in many struggling projects and organizations; the employees are aware of the problems, why they exist, and know how to solve them. Why then, does the situation persist? For the same reasons it persists in the bar or in the kitchen; fear and a lack of empowerment and support to do what is required. Managers, on the other hand (just like their TV counterparts), are quick to explain away their troubles as being the result of laziness, or ignorance, or not following process, or a lack of accountability, or all the usual excuses that managers give when thing are not working out. Although such things may be a factor, more often than not the staff is already eager to improve organizational performance and do work they can be proud of--they are just lacking the genuine support they need to make it happen.

I often see executives huddle with each other in order to determine how to best manage their organizations; they come up with new policies and procedures to "fix everything", but somehow the day-to-day struggles still remain. How about an open dialogue with the employees on the ground and in the field? And once you’ve done that, can you execute on what you hear and provide real support throughout the process? My guess is that this simple approach would make a world of difference for many organizations. If you really get good at, you might even have a future in television.