6 Silent Productivity and Profitability Pitfalls, part 5 of 7

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Silent Killer #4: Worship of Information

In our rush to ‘modernize’ everything and make our enterprises more efficient, we have mistakenly come to believe that information is our most valuable commodity. But data and information are useless without human beings to interpret them. These days, computers can do just about anything – except think for themselves. But we have come to tolerate the illusion that the essential matters of work can be invented, managed, and sustained through the creation, storage, retrieval, display, and publication of information.

Contemporary information systems are blind to many of the key drivers of productivity and have consistently failed in their quest to integrate the diverse operations of a company. By making information the priority, we have lost sight of its fundamental purpose – to enable the people to effectively address the concerns of their customers.

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Chris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential ProjectChris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential Project, is the author of The Power to Transform: Passion, Power, and Purpose in Daily Life (Rodale), which teaches the strategies corporate, military, and sports leaders have used to positively transform themselves and their organizations in a way readers can adept to their own lives and professions. He may be reached at www.humanpotentialproject.com.

6 Silent Productivity and Profitability Pitfalls, part 4 of 7

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Silent Killer #3: Bureaucratic Styles

To most people, bureaucracy is a bad word, synonymous with ‘red tape’ and wasted time. Yet, despite the negative connotations, most companies still operate bureaucratically – insisting employees work inside of increasingly complex structures with processes and procedures designed to standardize or control everything. While this might have been the most efficient way to train assembly line workers during the Industrial Era, human capital is now the greatest resource for most companies. In other words, we’re paying people to think, to innovate, and to collaborate with others to produce the best possible results. You can’t achieve this level of performance if you attempt to dictate their every move with rigid policies and procedures.

The fall of many of our great companies – including GM, Chrysler, AT&T, DEC, and a host of others – is a testimony to bureaucratic blindness. Unfortunately, contemporary management theory offers no alternatives to this style of organizing work and designing organizational structures. Current hierarchically oriented systems – no matter how lean and ‘matrixed’ – are relics of the bygone era of WWII industrialization and manufacturing.

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Chris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential ProjectChris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential Project, is the author of The Power to Transform: Passion, Power, and Purpose in Daily Life (Rodale), which teaches the strategies corporate, military, and sports leaders have used to positively transform themselves and their organizations in a way readers can adept to their own lives and professions. He may be reached at www.humanpotentialproject.com.

6 Silent Productivity and Profitability Pitfalls, part 3 of 7

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Silent Killer #2: Not Listening

To truly listen does not mean merely hearing or paying attention. Listening is a specific type of active interpretation that shapes our realities.

This largely unknown and certainly unrecognized skill is critical in the new business world. By blindly creating and/or tolerating working conditions in which people do not and often cannot effectively listen to one another, we kill productivity and profitability. This lack of listening can be the result of degenerative moods (e.g., institutionalized mistrust, resignation, or resentment), technology addiction (which can make it difficult for some people to actually talk to others), or a simple incompetence for speaking and listening. Regardless of the reason, if people are not listening to each other, accomplishing anything significant becomes extremely expensive, and making effective changes becomes all but impossible.

According to the International Listening Association, more than 35 studies indicate that listening is a top skill needed for success in business. Yet, less than 2 percent of all professionals have had formal education or learning to understand and improve listening skills and techniques.

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Chris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential ProjectChris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential Project, is the author of The Power to Transform: Passion, Power, and Purpose in Daily Life (Rodale), which teaches the strategies corporate, military, and sports leaders have used to positively transform themselves and their organizations in a way readers can adept to their own lives and professions. He may be reached at www.humanpotentialproject.com.

6 Silent Productivity and Profitability Pitfalls, part 2 of 7

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Silent Killer #1: Degenerative Moods

A mood is a predisposition for action. As human beings, we are always living in one mood or another. This is an inescapable aspect of life. We are mood-driven creatures, and our moods are the foundations from which we assess and move in the world.

Moods come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but they all fall into one of two categories: generative and degenerative. In other words, they do (or do not) generate possibilities, and it is in the world of possibilities that new futures are invented.

However, too many organizations today are in the grip of degenerative moods – with a workplace culture marked by some combination of distrust, resentment, resignation, cynicism, arrogance, and complacency. These degenerative moods can lead to a wide range of unproductive behaviors, which in turn consume or waste vast quantities of resources while leaders are forced to work around or attempt to correct them.

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Chris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential ProjectChris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential Project, is the author of The Power to Transform: Passion, Power, and Purpose in Daily Life (Rodale), which teaches the strategies corporate, military, and sports leaders have used to positively transform themselves and their organizations in a way readers can adept to their own lives and professions. He may be reached at www.humanpotentialproject.com.

6 Silent Productivity and Profitability Pitfalls, part 1 of 7

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The last decade ushered in an economic meltdown and technological breakthroughs that have forever changed the business world as we knew it. The changes have been so dramatic that most companies are still scrambling to figure out the new rules of the game.

We are facing a new world – one that calls for new approaches to generating consistent competitive advantage. Unfortunately contemporary management theory and practices have ill prepared us for our current reality. The near-universal rush to cut costs and headcount is more likely distracting us from, rather than enabling, the real work of retooling our enterprises to be competitive in this new world. The world is making tectonic shifts, which most business leaders are meeting with puny incremental responses.

Historic innovation often comes during times of historic difficulty, as these breakdowns create the demand for something new to emerge. As such, they are also times of great opportunity, providing a new way of seeing the world.

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Chris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential ProjectChris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential Project, is the author of The Power to Transform: Passion, Power, and Purpose in Daily Life (Rodale), which teaches the strategies corporate, military, and sports leaders have used to positively transform themselves and their organizations in a way readers can adept to their own lives and professions. He may be reached at www.humanpotentialproject.com.