“What happens when an organisation becomes introverted on
itself and is so concerned with the management of minutia that not only does
the ‘big picture’ get shuffled aside, but the future of the organisation
becomes hostage to spotlight seeking vocal minorities who even further divert
good people from strategic planning to managing minority imposed day to day
crises? And, like any dysfunction causing attention to be held captive,
the more it continues the more people shrink inside self imposed boundaries and
their new norms become more and more subjugated to real strategic requirements.
Everyone at times prefers to think and act in minutia terms
because it’s a way of stabilising the mind but we all don’t actively try to get
everyone else to do the same. For example think of the golf driving range
or archery as ‘wellness’ activities because they force a singular focus and a
resting of the mind. In most organisations the minutia set never move to
actually playing golf in the big world away from the driving range with the
corollary being ‘small minded management misfeasance’ rises from the bottom up
and infects all levels including the CEO.
Every company has good people who plan their socks off but
their plans fail to make it to reality because, senior staff are so bound up
with minority groups, minutia thinking and top down micro management that they
lose sight of creating greatness and a company leaping into the future with
people who rise above the everyday – as the norm.
Creating this future focus is the role of the CEO and
unfortunately that role is often occupied by traditional thinking small
thinking people who act as they believe they have to. For example, the
expression, ‘Government moves slowly’ is brain sappingly wrong and diverts
strategic thinking to an introverted view of the world focusing on minutia.
Governments do not move slowly, people do. These slow moving people are
the ‘minutia set’ who feel at home analysing every detail before they can move on.
We need these people to survive the information potpourri but we also need
those who can think strategically, create greatness and make it happen.
Some years ago I gave an address on ‘block people Vs jigsaw
people. I coined this term to describe strategic Vs minutia thinking in
an organisation and how important both were to survival. Problems arose
when one infected the other.
The new world CEO must lead from a strategic view backed up
by senior management then the minutia set can run the day to day aspects of the
organisation within the framework as set by the CEO whilst he or she develops
with the key stakeholders a grand plan for the future – and implements it!”
Seems obvious, doesn’t it. Yet, it’s anything
but common place.
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