8 of the most stupid management mistakes - at all times
Good day,
About Great Habr, I really like this article, I want to share.
Of course, I am very much at risk of hurting someone, but I believe in Habr and find this content interesting for publication - so I apologize in advance to those who are fascinated by something from the following. (I publish so far partially, when I finish the rest, I will publish it too.)
Translated by Jeffrey James, "The 8 Stupidest Management Fads of All Time"
')
This article lists 8 of the most disgusting, the most stupid and unpleasant, essentially useless errors in management practices that I have ever seen on my own experience. The article also has invaluable tips on how to survive in the company, and survive these innovations - until they disappear. (What actually will happen - in due course ...) Of course, these errors go away when new ones take their place, but no one promised that life at work would be easy.
Stupid Misconception # 1: Six Sigma
Creator : Motorola ( Total Quality Management )
Theory : The idea is to improve the quality of all processes in a company and eliminate all causes of errors. You designate a mass of people, with black and other masters' belts, (just like in karate) according to their experience in the Six Sigma methodology. You have a whole series of well-defined steps and financial targets designated by numbers ahead.
Reality : A whole hierarchy of “expert” experts (each in three belts - two ties) is created, which hang out inside the company, claiming that they know much better how to make other people work than the people who are directly involved in this activity. Guaranteed useless meetings, bringing little benefit, if it exists. In this case, the firm that provides you with consulting services for the implementation of Six Sigma, leaves you with a check for a tidy sum.
Result: Wasted time and effort. I quote a quality control expert who gave an interview to Fortune magazine,
“Of the 58 large companies that announced the launch of Six Sigma programs, 91% left the S & P 500 list / Rating list of capitalization of securities on the stock exchange /.” On the other hand, the entire industry is filled with “consultants” who make a living by merging performance in your company.
My opinion on this : Come on you. Fat managers-managers run around the circles of less reputable masters, as in the Bruce Lee film, from the planet Bizzaro. Of course, this is exactly what will help the company out of depression. You can't do it seriously, it's incredibly stupid.
The likelihood that you will do this at least once : 55%
Your strategy, if you are already involved in this : If your company implements Six Sigma, you will pay for it for two years. All work will be interspersed with rallies, which will take 20% of your time. After two years, the managers who entered it will either be fired or will be transferred to another job, and then the Six Sigma process will come to naught.
Stupid Misconception # 2: Business Process Reengineering / Business Process Reengineering
Creator : Michael Hummer
Theory : You need to analyze the work plan and processes within your organization and develop new ones in order to achieve a certain result from commercial activities. To do this, groups are assembled, they include specialists from different services, the work of these groups is aimed at building all the processes anew, and putting together separate functional tasks into logically complete processes that will go within these groups. The goal is also to integrate a large number of business functions into a corporate resource planning system, including management of the supply chain and other blah blah bla ...
Reality : Forget about rebuilding processes. Reengineering is a shamanic dance around the topic, who would be fired by the reduction. Top management uses this idea to justify the dismissal of staff in order that it seemed that they are actually doing something very logical, and not just trying to temporarily raise stock prices, so that their short-term obligations would pay off these layoffs.
Result: A whole chain of layoffs, followed by a complete collapse of your company. Rather sooner than later.
My opinion about this : The whole idea is stupid, and incurable. Massive changes within the corporation during the course of work are very much like the idea of ​​repairing and re-equipping the car when you are driving on the highway. In any case, reengineering suggests that corporations fail because of lousy processes, while they fail ALWAYS as a result of lousy management.
The likelihood that you will do this at least once : 65%
Your strategy, if you are already involved in this : If your company announced that it is beginning to reengineer the processes, this is the time to update your resume. Start the crazy-like hanging out on social networks, and find yourself a vacancy in another company as soon as possible. Even if your position in the company is good enough not to fall under these reductions, you just don’t want to work there after all this reengineering, when some time has passed and you’ll understand what it is. Take my word for it.
Stupid Misconception # 3: Matrix Management / Matrix Management
Creator : Agent Smith
Theory : Personnel with similar professional skills are brought together to solve work tasks. For example, all engineering and technical personnel can be assembled within one department and report to the manager of this department. But the same specialists can also be assigned to other tasks on other projects and send reports to the project manager during the work on that second project. Therefore, each specialist should actually work under the guidance of several managers to do his job.
Reality : Endless, exhausting war for territory. Each manager fights for him to be considered the “real” manager of this staff. They lead this war, using such means, forcing everyone to attend the required “staff rallies” and by looking for all sorts of additional hooks to catch on, and demanding “do this, I don’t know what, go there I don’t know where” ..., just to prove that there is power behind them.
Result: All the work on the production immediately just falls. The management is presented with a full interpretation of the arguments about who will do what and when. As this system breeds a growing number of managers, the organization is gradually becoming oversaturated with the number of managers. As a result, top management nevertheless understands that this is an incurably stupid idea, and finds one person whom he exposes guilty.
My opinion on this : I actually worked in an organization that used matrix management. Each reported to three different managers, and each manager insisted on holding weekly 3-hour rallies (nothing). Their managers also required everyone to attend a mandatory weekly rally (one-hour) to “establish communication”. In total, it was 10 hours - 25% of the work week - spent to no one knows where.
The likelihood that you will do this at least once : 10%
Your strategy, if you're already inside : Make sure you have internet in your conference room. And during all these endless strains in order to conquer territory, you can answer letters, search for something on the Internet, play games, etc. Otherwise, you just have to wait until it ends. It will not last in your company for more than a year.
Stupid Misconception # 4: Consensus Management / Management by Consensus
Creator : Platon
Theory : Important decisions need to be made with the consent of all members of the group. Proposals are developed collectively, and the main goal is to develop a general agreement on the main goal. Consensus-based management is usually considered an alternative for a situation where decision-making takes place along a “top-down” chain, which is a common situation for hierarchical organizations.
Reality : Since everyone can participate in making a decision, anyone can give his veto — and stop any decision. As a result, only decisions are made that are absolutely safe and support the status quo. Difficult decisions - those that will be "against the wool" to someone - are quietly removed.
Result: Forget about this wisdom of the national assembly. A general assembly usually behaves in such a way (so stupidly) that they cannot even formulate a common solution. Namely, decision making by consensus often leads to what is called the “Abilene paradox” when a group agrees to such a course of events (course of action) that does not suit any member of the group at all, since no one wants to go against the will of the whole group.
My opinion on this : Consensus-based management is like swimming in a quicksand pool. Due to the fact that important decisions are never made, the whole organization flounders in this, trying to find support, in the end - they merge themselves. By the way, this consensus-based management system sometimes arises by chance when groups have managers who are simply afraid to make decisions, because someone who works with them might be offended (by these decisions).
The likelihood that you will do this at least once : 35%
Your strategy, if you are already inside : Call for a volunteer who will keep a record of the general rally. Make your own decisions, and then vouch for them that this was a consensus. No one will notice this until you become too ambitious, and you start to assert that something quite odious, for example, that black is white.
Foolish Misconception # 5: Focus on one main direction
Creator : ME Porter
Theory : The idea is to focus on the main direction - one particular specialization in which you (your specialists, your company) own better than anyone else. It will be difficult for your competitors to repeat your strategy, and this will save your organization from wasting time on tasks for which you are not very good.
Reality : Most organizations, like most managers who manage these organizations, know their strengths and weaknesses not much better than the cabbage stalk. As a result, they rarely really know, and what are their strengths after all? In many cases, organizations think that in some ways they are good, but in fact - they are successful for some completely different reasons.
Result: Focusing on the core specialization usually ends with the appearance of some kind of myth, which actually limits the field of activity to only one thing in which they were once successful in the past. As a result, companies focused on one main direction suddenly find a crowd of competitors around themselves that can plug them in their belts.
My opinion about this : Like all other misconceptions, it really sounds like a great idea, but corporate managers must implement it, which means that even if it were the most wonderful idea in the world, they would still confuse everything to complete absurdity. .
The probability that you will do this at least once : 85%
Your strategy, if you are already inside : Join the work of the committee, which will determine which direction of the company’s activities to consider as the main one. Make sure that your work (everything that you do) is the main direction. If you do not succeed, go to the group that will win this discussion (about the main direction).
Stupid Misconception # 6: Targeted Management / Task Management
Creator : Peter Drucker
Theory : The point is to define the organization’s objectives in such a way that the management and the hired personnel share these goals, and understand their role within the organization - and then compare the actual result of the work with some agreed list of standards.
Reality : All hours are making plans for the future. And when the future actually comes, nothing of what was expected happens. As a result, everyone is either busy with what could have worked - a year ago, or with something that was not planned at all, and then time is still being spent so that all this activity looks exactly in the same way as if it were working according to plan.
Result: Tons of outdated planning documentation - and a very dismal result. Presumably, the percentage of companies that have been successful with this strategy is about 6%.
My opinion on this : There is nothing wrong with setting goals and knowing exactly what you should do to achieve them, but task management becomes a mistake at the moment when it is made part of the old decision review procedure. The worst case scenario is when it becomes a bureaucratic nightmare that completely blocks the flexibility of decisions in an organization.
The likelihood that you will do this at least once : 90%
Your strategy, if you are already inside : Outline your goals as vaguely as possible, and make sure that there are many ways to determine the degree of their realization. Then - no matter what happens, it will still look as if the goals have been achieved. And most importantly, do not feel guilty about the fact that you are playing with the system, because your boss probably leads his games in a chain, but already in a big way.
Stupid Misconception # 7: The Search for Excellence :
Creator : Tom Peters
Theory : The point is to seek solutions for business problems in advance, as soon as possible, to give authority to decision-makers, within the company - at all levels.
Reality : At a minimum, the data on which this concept is built is questionable. The author of the idea was once accused of falsifying the data on which his book "In Search of Perfection" is based. He later withdrew the statement.
Result: Awful. Just awful. Most of the companies he cites, as examples, face countless problems.
My opinion on this : This is just another good excuse for companies to justify putting their “best ideas” into practice. In the best case, this ends with the strategy “we also do this”. The intermediate option is when it ends with the situation “we do it too”, but nothing is clear - what will be the management - neither for your field of activity, nor for your company. The worst option - it will end up being pushed out of the market by another company.
The likelihood that you will do this at least once : 20%
Your strategy, if you're already inside : Hard to say. If your top management is still nibbling on the feces of a dead mammoth, they are hopelessly outdated. You can try to bring the following arguments: that the same author has since written many more different books, and all of them are the same - in offset. (or not in offset). Maybe then your manager will go into hibernation and read them all, while you have time to finally get to work.
Foolish Misconception # 8: Governance is from God.
Creator : Girolamo Savonarola
Theory : Company success is in the hands of the Lord. and therefore, managers should daily turn to prayer to God, and ask God questions regarding their decisions. All decisions must be in accordance with the law of God.
Reality : Managers who think that the Lord God speaks with them almost always come to the conclusion that the Lord God tells them to do the very things that best suit their interests. At the same time, transferring their worldview and their judgments to God, they lose their sense of perspective and self-identification, that is, they do not understand that they are acting selfishly, and simply turn into bone into ... ope.
Result: Company staff are forced to attend mandatory prayer meetings (meetings), as a result of which they are mainly convinced that their manager is a tail from a donkey, with amazing proportions.
My opinion about this : Horror-horror-horror ...
The likelihood that you will do this at least once : To blue in the face: 10% To redness: 90%
Your strategy, if you're already inside : There are two options. The first is to safely ignore all this, and to spend time of prayer meetings on other exercises to strengthen the psyche, for example, on day dreams about how I will do sports. A good plan to survive is to mentally walk around the conference room and imagine what it would be like if you suddenly thought of making love with everyone. The second option is to become their first first devotee. To swear that the Lord and his angels descended to the earth and urgently demanded that you have a salary increase - 57%. Promise the boss that he will be thrown into the abyss, if you do not add a little more - in cash.
About Great Habr, I really like this article, I want to share.
Of course, I am very much at risk of hurting someone, but I believe in Habr and find this content interesting for publication - so I apologize in advance to those who are fascinated by something from the following. (I publish so far partially, when I finish the rest, I will publish it too.)
Translated by Jeffrey James, "The 8 Stupidest Management Fads of All Time"
')
This article lists 8 of the most disgusting, the most stupid and unpleasant, essentially useless errors in management practices that I have ever seen on my own experience. The article also has invaluable tips on how to survive in the company, and survive these innovations - until they disappear. (What actually will happen - in due course ...) Of course, these errors go away when new ones take their place, but no one promised that life at work would be easy.
Stupid Misconception # 1: Six Sigma
Creator : Motorola ( Total Quality Management )
Theory : The idea is to improve the quality of all processes in a company and eliminate all causes of errors. You designate a mass of people, with black and other masters' belts, (just like in karate) according to their experience in the Six Sigma methodology. You have a whole series of well-defined steps and financial targets designated by numbers ahead.
Reality : A whole hierarchy of “expert” experts (each in three belts - two ties) is created, which hang out inside the company, claiming that they know much better how to make other people work than the people who are directly involved in this activity. Guaranteed useless meetings, bringing little benefit, if it exists. In this case, the firm that provides you with consulting services for the implementation of Six Sigma, leaves you with a check for a tidy sum.
Result: Wasted time and effort. I quote a quality control expert who gave an interview to Fortune magazine,
“Of the 58 large companies that announced the launch of Six Sigma programs, 91% left the S & P 500 list / Rating list of capitalization of securities on the stock exchange /.” On the other hand, the entire industry is filled with “consultants” who make a living by merging performance in your company.
My opinion on this : Come on you. Fat managers-managers run around the circles of less reputable masters, as in the Bruce Lee film, from the planet Bizzaro. Of course, this is exactly what will help the company out of depression. You can't do it seriously, it's incredibly stupid.
The likelihood that you will do this at least once : 55%
Your strategy, if you are already involved in this : If your company implements Six Sigma, you will pay for it for two years. All work will be interspersed with rallies, which will take 20% of your time. After two years, the managers who entered it will either be fired or will be transferred to another job, and then the Six Sigma process will come to naught.
Stupid Misconception # 2: Business Process Reengineering / Business Process Reengineering
Creator : Michael Hummer
Theory : You need to analyze the work plan and processes within your organization and develop new ones in order to achieve a certain result from commercial activities. To do this, groups are assembled, they include specialists from different services, the work of these groups is aimed at building all the processes anew, and putting together separate functional tasks into logically complete processes that will go within these groups. The goal is also to integrate a large number of business functions into a corporate resource planning system, including management of the supply chain and other blah blah bla ...
Reality : Forget about rebuilding processes. Reengineering is a shamanic dance around the topic, who would be fired by the reduction. Top management uses this idea to justify the dismissal of staff in order that it seemed that they are actually doing something very logical, and not just trying to temporarily raise stock prices, so that their short-term obligations would pay off these layoffs.
Result: A whole chain of layoffs, followed by a complete collapse of your company. Rather sooner than later.
My opinion about this : The whole idea is stupid, and incurable. Massive changes within the corporation during the course of work are very much like the idea of ​​repairing and re-equipping the car when you are driving on the highway. In any case, reengineering suggests that corporations fail because of lousy processes, while they fail ALWAYS as a result of lousy management.
The likelihood that you will do this at least once : 65%
Your strategy, if you are already involved in this : If your company announced that it is beginning to reengineer the processes, this is the time to update your resume. Start the crazy-like hanging out on social networks, and find yourself a vacancy in another company as soon as possible. Even if your position in the company is good enough not to fall under these reductions, you just don’t want to work there after all this reengineering, when some time has passed and you’ll understand what it is. Take my word for it.
Stupid Misconception # 3: Matrix Management / Matrix Management
Creator : Agent Smith
Theory : Personnel with similar professional skills are brought together to solve work tasks. For example, all engineering and technical personnel can be assembled within one department and report to the manager of this department. But the same specialists can also be assigned to other tasks on other projects and send reports to the project manager during the work on that second project. Therefore, each specialist should actually work under the guidance of several managers to do his job.
Reality : Endless, exhausting war for territory. Each manager fights for him to be considered the “real” manager of this staff. They lead this war, using such means, forcing everyone to attend the required “staff rallies” and by looking for all sorts of additional hooks to catch on, and demanding “do this, I don’t know what, go there I don’t know where” ..., just to prove that there is power behind them.
Result: All the work on the production immediately just falls. The management is presented with a full interpretation of the arguments about who will do what and when. As this system breeds a growing number of managers, the organization is gradually becoming oversaturated with the number of managers. As a result, top management nevertheless understands that this is an incurably stupid idea, and finds one person whom he exposes guilty.
My opinion on this : I actually worked in an organization that used matrix management. Each reported to three different managers, and each manager insisted on holding weekly 3-hour rallies (nothing). Their managers also required everyone to attend a mandatory weekly rally (one-hour) to “establish communication”. In total, it was 10 hours - 25% of the work week - spent to no one knows where.
The likelihood that you will do this at least once : 10%
Your strategy, if you're already inside : Make sure you have internet in your conference room. And during all these endless strains in order to conquer territory, you can answer letters, search for something on the Internet, play games, etc. Otherwise, you just have to wait until it ends. It will not last in your company for more than a year.
Stupid Misconception # 4: Consensus Management / Management by Consensus
Creator : Platon
Theory : Important decisions need to be made with the consent of all members of the group. Proposals are developed collectively, and the main goal is to develop a general agreement on the main goal. Consensus-based management is usually considered an alternative for a situation where decision-making takes place along a “top-down” chain, which is a common situation for hierarchical organizations.
Reality : Since everyone can participate in making a decision, anyone can give his veto — and stop any decision. As a result, only decisions are made that are absolutely safe and support the status quo. Difficult decisions - those that will be "against the wool" to someone - are quietly removed.
Result: Forget about this wisdom of the national assembly. A general assembly usually behaves in such a way (so stupidly) that they cannot even formulate a common solution. Namely, decision making by consensus often leads to what is called the “Abilene paradox” when a group agrees to such a course of events (course of action) that does not suit any member of the group at all, since no one wants to go against the will of the whole group.
My opinion on this : Consensus-based management is like swimming in a quicksand pool. Due to the fact that important decisions are never made, the whole organization flounders in this, trying to find support, in the end - they merge themselves. By the way, this consensus-based management system sometimes arises by chance when groups have managers who are simply afraid to make decisions, because someone who works with them might be offended (by these decisions).
The likelihood that you will do this at least once : 35%
Your strategy, if you are already inside : Call for a volunteer who will keep a record of the general rally. Make your own decisions, and then vouch for them that this was a consensus. No one will notice this until you become too ambitious, and you start to assert that something quite odious, for example, that black is white.
Foolish Misconception # 5: Focus on one main direction
Creator : ME Porter
Theory : The idea is to focus on the main direction - one particular specialization in which you (your specialists, your company) own better than anyone else. It will be difficult for your competitors to repeat your strategy, and this will save your organization from wasting time on tasks for which you are not very good.
Reality : Most organizations, like most managers who manage these organizations, know their strengths and weaknesses not much better than the cabbage stalk. As a result, they rarely really know, and what are their strengths after all? In many cases, organizations think that in some ways they are good, but in fact - they are successful for some completely different reasons.
Result: Focusing on the core specialization usually ends with the appearance of some kind of myth, which actually limits the field of activity to only one thing in which they were once successful in the past. As a result, companies focused on one main direction suddenly find a crowd of competitors around themselves that can plug them in their belts.
My opinion about this : Like all other misconceptions, it really sounds like a great idea, but corporate managers must implement it, which means that even if it were the most wonderful idea in the world, they would still confuse everything to complete absurdity. .
The probability that you will do this at least once : 85%
Your strategy, if you are already inside : Join the work of the committee, which will determine which direction of the company’s activities to consider as the main one. Make sure that your work (everything that you do) is the main direction. If you do not succeed, go to the group that will win this discussion (about the main direction).
Stupid Misconception # 6: Targeted Management / Task Management
Creator : Peter Drucker
Theory : The point is to define the organization’s objectives in such a way that the management and the hired personnel share these goals, and understand their role within the organization - and then compare the actual result of the work with some agreed list of standards.
Reality : All hours are making plans for the future. And when the future actually comes, nothing of what was expected happens. As a result, everyone is either busy with what could have worked - a year ago, or with something that was not planned at all, and then time is still being spent so that all this activity looks exactly in the same way as if it were working according to plan.
Result: Tons of outdated planning documentation - and a very dismal result. Presumably, the percentage of companies that have been successful with this strategy is about 6%.
My opinion on this : There is nothing wrong with setting goals and knowing exactly what you should do to achieve them, but task management becomes a mistake at the moment when it is made part of the old decision review procedure. The worst case scenario is when it becomes a bureaucratic nightmare that completely blocks the flexibility of decisions in an organization.
The likelihood that you will do this at least once : 90%
Your strategy, if you are already inside : Outline your goals as vaguely as possible, and make sure that there are many ways to determine the degree of their realization. Then - no matter what happens, it will still look as if the goals have been achieved. And most importantly, do not feel guilty about the fact that you are playing with the system, because your boss probably leads his games in a chain, but already in a big way.
Stupid Misconception # 7: The Search for Excellence :
Creator : Tom Peters
Theory : The point is to seek solutions for business problems in advance, as soon as possible, to give authority to decision-makers, within the company - at all levels.
Reality : At a minimum, the data on which this concept is built is questionable. The author of the idea was once accused of falsifying the data on which his book "In Search of Perfection" is based. He later withdrew the statement.
Result: Awful. Just awful. Most of the companies he cites, as examples, face countless problems.
My opinion on this : This is just another good excuse for companies to justify putting their “best ideas” into practice. In the best case, this ends with the strategy “we also do this”. The intermediate option is when it ends with the situation “we do it too”, but nothing is clear - what will be the management - neither for your field of activity, nor for your company. The worst option - it will end up being pushed out of the market by another company.
The likelihood that you will do this at least once : 20%
Your strategy, if you're already inside : Hard to say. If your top management is still nibbling on the feces of a dead mammoth, they are hopelessly outdated. You can try to bring the following arguments: that the same author has since written many more different books, and all of them are the same - in offset. (or not in offset). Maybe then your manager will go into hibernation and read them all, while you have time to finally get to work.
Foolish Misconception # 8: Governance is from God.
Creator : Girolamo Savonarola
Theory : Company success is in the hands of the Lord. and therefore, managers should daily turn to prayer to God, and ask God questions regarding their decisions. All decisions must be in accordance with the law of God.
Reality : Managers who think that the Lord God speaks with them almost always come to the conclusion that the Lord God tells them to do the very things that best suit their interests. At the same time, transferring their worldview and their judgments to God, they lose their sense of perspective and self-identification, that is, they do not understand that they are acting selfishly, and simply turn into bone into ... ope.
Result: Company staff are forced to attend mandatory prayer meetings (meetings), as a result of which they are mainly convinced that their manager is a tail from a donkey, with amazing proportions.
My opinion about this : Horror-horror-horror ...
The likelihood that you will do this at least once : To blue in the face: 10% To redness: 90%
Your strategy, if you're already inside : There are two options. The first is to safely ignore all this, and to spend time of prayer meetings on other exercises to strengthen the psyche, for example, on day dreams about how I will do sports. A good plan to survive is to mentally walk around the conference room and imagine what it would be like if you suddenly thought of making love with everyone. The second option is to become their first first devotee. To swear that the Lord and his angels descended to the earth and urgently demanded that you have a salary increase - 57%. Promise the boss that he will be thrown into the abyss, if you do not add a little more - in cash.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/109474/
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