Not the Everyday Topic
Usually I’d be at the pool at this time but the unwilling weather meant that I was resigned to staring out the window at the inviting kidney-shaped pool glistening in the near distance, watching the big fat rain drops drown my hopes of a dip and a sip.
So I ponder. With my much-needed maternity break of 16 weeks finally coming to an end, I’m bracing myself for the big return to work and find myself seriously pondering the pitfalls and successes these last 12 years at work and how we can all get better.
The recent fiasco at one well known Japanese auto-maker resulting in millions of cars recalled worldwide, sure provides many lessons. And I don’t mean only at a time of crisis. Any company, even one that sits at the pinnacle of Japan’s corporate world, is fallible. And at a massive, global scale of fatal proportions too.
To acknowledge this possibility, is to tell ourselves that our jobs are not to avoid mistakes/criticism/chastise as much as it is about knowing what to do when we fail or make mistakes. In the case of this auto-maker, it is not that their brakes didn’t work but that they were not able to appease the buying public quickly enough with conclusive explanations and resolutions, in a manner that was precise and acceptable, in a spirit of contrite apology and humility [It first explained that ill-fitting floor mats had jammed the brake pedals...this explanation did not appease the angry public one bit and it does not take a sceptic to see why].
Why was a company this acclaimed so slow to come clean? How did a problem so big take this long to get the attention of the right people in what represents a commercial giant in the Japanese economy, one whose success companies around the world seek to emulate?
We need to be mindful, local and MNCs alike, that defensiveness against differing viewpoints, feedback, criticism and a hyperbolic deference to senior management is a toxic combination. It breeds a culture that’s inward looking and that’s etched in fear and disempowerment. One that’s poorly equipped to stand up to the changing challenges of a battered economy that is only recovering from an onslaught of financial, political and world issues.
While many corporate cultures espouse homogeneity in their hiring policies, seeking only candidates who demonstrate similar thought and perspectives in a bid to build a “harmonious” workforce, the ability of diverse individuals and disciplines to bring new ideas and to question the “way things are here” cannot be undermined. The junior vs senior staff-divide also serves to prevent important information from moving up quickly enough to be taken seriously.
Debates that take place within confines of a boardroom can prevent outbreaks of a more calamitous nature in the outside world. Leaders have to be willing to acknowledge when problems exist, be unafraid to know the truth, even if its an admission of failure. Because if commercial mammoths can fail, if the banks of the world can, if countries can, why are we different? What defines true leadership and strong corporate management lies in how a crisis is solved and how faith in the business both within and without is restored. This begins from an ability to accurately diagnose problems, the empowerment of the right people to fix these and a commitment across the board from the most senior manager to the lowest in the ranks, to never commit the same mistake of the same proportions again.
So until we are ready to admit that we are all fallible, that seniority does not dictate the only opinion, we will not be ready to empower our people across the board and to allow their opinions and feedback from the ground up to influence how we operate. Organisations will never shed the opaqueness that often is why we fail to see problems before they blow up in our faces.
February 22nd, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Great piece. However you hit the isue in the nail when you said “it is not that their brakes didn’t work but that they were not able to appease the buying public quickly enough with conclusive explanations and resolutions”.
The issue is that when companies/individuals become too scuccesfull they start beleiving in their own infallibility. They forget who they are serving and believe what they say is coorect and everybody else is wrong. More distressingly they get into this syndrome of people are pointing fingers as they are jealous.
This is the reason why people in power get corrupt. In Toyota’s case they felt that it was just other manufactureres or politicians stirring up the trpuble as they thought their own processes and QC is so good (as was written about till then) that such issues cannot originate from their factory floors.
Lesson for all of us, always rememberw who you are working for..not your boss..not your company..but your buyers. If they are happy, then the rest all are happy.