Patrick Salaski,
Digineer:
952.807.1906
psalaski@digineer.com
www.digineer.com
I FREQUENTLY WORK with leadership teams to provide advice on how to overcome various business challenges. In this role I have the advantage of looking at their business from an external perspective.
I decided to write this article, and its companion that follows, for three simple reasons. First, it has been my experience that most organizations have several self-destructive behaviors in common.
Second, it has become increasingly clear that when leaders are in the midst of chaotic situations it is difficult for them to recognize these symptoms
Third, I want to help leaders recognize these symptoms as they are starting to emerge, before they have the opportunity to cripple their success, or, worse yet, completely wipe out their ability to survive.
As you review this list of symptoms, note how much organizational chaos can begin to act like a progressive disease. The longer the chaos continues, the more invasive and challenging the methods to fix it become.
Symptoms of chaos
1. Inability to focus on things that matter. There are many well documented consequences for not effectively executing your business strategy, including lost market opportunities, lost revenue, decreased customer loyalty, waning employee commitment and erosion of brand value.
Too often I have witnessed company leaders getting caught up in the “fire-fighting” syndrome. In these situations, the company spends an excessive amount of time each day reacting to new situations and stopping the crisis. The company’s strategic objectives are among the last tasks to be completed, or they don’t get completed at all.
A related symptom occurs when everyone’s daily calendars are filled with meetings, but nothing gets accomplished. To see if this is happening in your organization, simply check your own calendar to see how many meetings you are attending on a regular basis. Then watch and listen for how many times the same topics are discussed over and over with limited accountability.
2. Missed deadlines, missed opportunities. In chaos-filled organizations, it seems that every activity takes more time and effort to accomplish than it should. This often leads to missed deadlines, missed opportunities to acquire new customers, late shipments on orders, or even an inability to hire top talent to fill critical roles.
3. Lower productivity. At times when employees feel like they are “spinning their wheels” you will usually notice that productivity suffers. The entire tempo of the organization slows and the company’s ability to react to new opportunities or external threats is significantly reduced.
4. High stress. Where you find organizational chaos, you will soon find employees taking more time off due to illness, increased conflict among your team members and a general lack of cooperation and trust.
5. Staff burnout. In those chaotic organizations that are lucky enough to continue to meet production deadlines, or still exceed customer demands, it is usually because of the work of a critical few employees. These employees consistently rise to hero status in order to ensure that nothing falls between the cracks.
Unfortunately, if the organization fails to change and these heroics become the expected norm rather than the exception, these employees can burn out and become less productive.
6. Staff turnover. If chaos is allowed to continue for any length of time, most organizations will start to see their best performers leave. Even during an economic downturn, the brightest stars can usually find new opportunities.
7. Redundancies/operational inefficiencies. We have all heard the phrase “haste makes waste.” Nowhere is this more evident than in organizations where chaos hampers the employees’ ability to act effectively and efficiently.
One of the destructive byproducts that occurs from this symptom is that people who perform the same tasks each has their own methods for accomplishing the work. While some individual variations are normal, wholesale deviations result in people having to scramble to ensure nothing falls between the cracks.
8. Higher costs. Have you ever stopped to calculate the cost of chaos to your organization? Where there is chaos, you will usually find greater amounts of rework, increased order errors, higher percentage of product returns, increased illness, higher percentage of work-related injuries and increased overtime costs.
9. Lost customers. Watch out when your customers begin to notice the chaos. Cracks begin to emerge in business processes, and there are inconsistencies in the way customers are treated.
Multiple research studies have found that many customers will pay a premium price if they consistently receive high levels of customer service. The bad news is that these same customers are also likely to quickly go somewhere else if they receive bad service.
10. Lower revenue/decreased profitability. The usual outcome from these cumulative effects is less revenue, higher costs and decreased profits for the organization. Unfortunately, if these conditions are allowed to persist for any length of time, the organization may realize the ultimate cost and have to close its doors.
Check the disease
These business challenges are real. Much like a chronic disease that is allowed to continue to grow undetected, the longer an organization fails to recognize that it is a chaos-filled enterprise, the more the business impact will be felt.
Recognizing that your organization has a problem and being willing to do something about it are the first two critical steps in the journey to returning to health.
