Band-Aid or Surgery?
By Greg Phillips

Band-aids are good for minor injuries but they don’t cure cancer.

No one would argue with the above statement yet metaphorically speaking we often use band-aids for serious ailments in our businesses. Sometimes this is done deliberately but mostly it is done without us realising quite what we’re doing. We apply what appears to be a solution when all we’re really doing is covering up the symptoms. If you have a discharged battery in your car it won't start. If you fit a new battery the car will start. But have you reached a solution? Not if the cause of the battery being discharged was a faulty alternator. You can keep replacing the battery but the problem will be forever with you until you remedy the cause, in this case, the alternator.

The three most common complaints I hear from executives and senior managers are:

1.      Personnel are not committed to corporate goals.

2.      Personnel don’t adhere to the mission statement.

3.      Personnel turnover is high, expensive and detrimental. *

*(Some organisations aren’t aware of the amount of this cost. An Australian Institute of Management survey found that 38.4% of companies reported the cost of replacing an employee to be up to $20,000 and 28.4% estimated it to be between $20,000 & $50,000.)

Regardless of the type of problem facing any organisation the only correct solution is to cure the cause – not to apply a band-aid.

Let’s take the example of personnel not being committed to corporate goals.
What are some common attempts by organisation to remedy this?

• Sending out regular memos, maybe monthly, to remind personnel of the goals.
• Holding meetings to outline the need for commitment to the goals or the ramifications of not achieving the goals.
• Running an incentive program.
• Briefing supervisors to ‘drill in’ the goals at every opportunity.
Printing banners and/or stationary with goals.

None of the above work, which is why they have to be repeated over and over, each time with reduced effect. They don't get to the cause. It is just like replacing the car battery every time it becomes discharged. They are band-aids. So how can you get personnel committed to corporate goals? The explanation to this is a little lengthy for this short article (I am happy to provide it by telephone) however the fundamental reason is ‘lack of ownership’.

A basic law of effective goal setting is that the individual must have ownership of the goal. It must be what the individual wants or needs to achieve and the goal must be achievable by the individual. Therefore the only approach that will have any result is for the individual to have personal goals that contribute to the corporate goals. The distinction might seem small to the uninitiated but there is a vast difference in an individual being told for example that the corporate goal is to be number one in the marketplace by June 2008 and for the individual to have a personal goal of their division achieving the growth required to assist the corporation to achieve the end goal. Can the Divisional Manager achieve the corporate goal? – No. Can the Divisional Manager achieve their personal goal for their division? – Yes. Can people within the division achieve the corporate goal? – No. Can people within the division achieve the division goal? – No. Can people within the division achieve personal goals that contribute to the achievement of the division goals? – Yes. Goals work because they give you a target to achieve so if all of your personnel are to assist with the corporate goals they must have a target to achieve i.e. Their own personal goals.

Let’s take a look at complaint number two.
The problem is again one of ownership. Who wrote the mission statement? If it was the Board of Directors who has ownership? – The Board of Directors. Are the needs of the Board the needs of frontline personnel? – Not likely.

Mission statements are written for a variety of reasons. Why was yours written? Was it for the benefit of customers? Was it to gel a culture throughout the organisation? Was it to please investors? Was it a combination of all three? A mission statement is only effective if it achieves its goal. Otherwise it is just fancy words on paper or a plaque. For the mission statement to achieve its goal personnel must have ownership and this will only occur if they feel they have been involved in the development of the mission statement. Recently I was in a retail store and noticed behind the counter a wall plaque with the corporate mission statement. It was a good mission statement and included references to good customer service and respect for employees. Great, I thought. I felt it might have been an influence on the Manager of the store as he had served me on a number of previous occasions and provided me with excellent service. Alas, not only did he not know the mission statement but he was unaware it was even there on the wall. And this was someone who was a conscientious hard working employee. Some might say that he couldn’t be conscientious because he didn’t even know the mission statement. The fact is though that he simply had no ownership of it because it was down-lined and therefore had no value.

Thomas J. Watson Jr, former CEO of IBM said, “There are two things an organisation must increase far out of proportion to its growth rate if that organisation is to overcome the problems of change. The first of these is communication, upward and downward. The second is education and retraining.”

Now let’s look at problem number three.

People need to feel that they are an integral part of an organisation. If they feel a sense of belonging they are much more likely to be loyal, long-serving employees.

Betska K-Burr wrote in, ‘Creating Champions’,  “A massive paradigm shift is occurring which demands that employees be empowered to innovate to better serve the customer. Motivation means creating an environment in which people can grow”. She also says “poor training is also one of the main reasons why good employees leave. During tough economic times, advertising and training are the two areas that companies cut. Once again, that short term thinking puts us in a panic.” K-Burr quotes Tom Peters, “’The excellent companies view extensive, pragmatic training as a necessity, not as a boom-time nicety…you gotta trust ‘em, and train the livin’ daylights out of them.’”

• Some tips from K-Burr include:
• Share your organisations dreams with staff and customers.
• Ask them to participate in achieving those dreams.
• Bring in motivational speakers to give your employees a whack on the side of the head’.
• Train your people to be successful.

  ”Strategy is people” – Jack Welch

The interesting thing with each of these three problems is that they are all connected to one another. There is a definite link between someone caring about corporate goals and the mission statement and their own sense of self-worth to the organisation, which in turn impacts on staff turnover.

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