I suspect that in most organizations:
- Supervisors hire too quickly and fire too slowly.
- Performance evaluations are grossly inflated.
- Executives are in serious need of candor.
- The HR people spend too much time on the clerk and cop roles and not enough time as a consultant.
- The application process is heavily weighted against the convenience of the applicant.
- Managers don't know the difference between EEO, Affirmative Action, and Diversity Management.
- By the time HR gets information it's too late for meaningful action
- Managers and supervisors don't have enough time to think.
- Excellent employees resign and no serious effort is made to keep them.
- Jerks are kept if their numbers look good.
4 comments:
Written as if you were a fly on the wall of my State agency. Yet how to move them forward? How to plant that seed that says, "This is not ok" without having the tender new sprout wither under the crushing weight of those who "retire" but then "return to work" in the same job, with the same mindset, and at the same salary. All the while the Board is happy to skim the surface rather than dig deeper and ask why and how. It is my experiences here that lead me to support human cloning...I vote for 100 more Michael Wades to head every State of Arizona agency, board, and commission!! A girl can dream, right?
Crusty,
I will agree to any cloning although my faults will come along with any virtues.
In some cases it is possible to construct a firewall between your work unit and the rest of the agency. It is rarely 100 percent effective but it can reduce the amount of craziness and provide greater freedom so you and your team to focus on what can be done.
It is not unusual to find pockets of excellence within highly dysfunctional organizations. Those pockets are run by people who shift their attention from the insane practices and zero in on the areas they can control and improve.
That said, some places are so weird that the best solution is to flee. In Arizona, I've found in general that the city governments are usually better places to work than the county and the county is better than the state.
Good luck!
Michael
Thank you, wise one, for being a beacon.
Crusty,
Thank you for your kind remarks. Take care and please keep me posted.
Best,
Michael
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