A commonly used saying: "Nobody ever got fired for hiring McKinsey". They are the low risk option. By hiring them you might not always get what you want, but you definitely didn't get in trouble.

In an organizational culture that punishes mistakes, employees choose the low risk option regardless of the rewards (sometimes even when they know there will be no benefit). If you're steering your company away from bankruptcy, this might be the right culture to have until things get better.

But if you're trying to achieve great things, make it a point to reward great attempts even when they fail.

And fire the next person who hires McKinsey.

Read More

If I'm going to listen to your opinion (and it's really just an opinion no matter how forcefully you say it), I have to believe two things:

First, I have to believe that you know what you're talking about. I have to believe that you've done this before, that you've rolled up your sleeves and battled with this kind of problem and not just watched from the sidelines. People who have really done something sound very different from those who passively experienced it.

Second, I have to believe that you have my best interests at heart. There's no easy way to do this. You have to invest time and effort in understanding my interests, and in doing all the things it takes for me to trust you.

Only then will you have my full support.

Read More

When you take on a new leadership role, you're going to feel the urge to jump in and start working on the projects that are most important to success. With your experience, negotiating a difficult contract or improving customer service is child's play.

These early wins are important: they build trust, and create momentum towards a better future.

But if projects are always dependent on you to be successful, then you've demoted yourself to a doer rather than a leader.

Do the early wins, and then move quickly to building your team's capability. This requires a safe space to learn, and to fail. If we learned to walk on the edge of a cliff, no one would walk.

In the long run, you'll only move as fast as your team can handle. 

Read More

One of the first documents that gets pulled out whenever a change is being contemplated is the organization chart. The sheet of boxes and lines supposedly shows where everyone fits in the organization and who they take orders from.

Except it doesn't really. 

It doesn't highlight the old-timer that people look to whenever management makes an announcement to get a sense of whether to take it seriously. And it doesn't show how the executive assistant gives his favorites a heads-up on the downsizing that's coming in a few weeks so they can better position themselves.

Managers react in one of two ways at the first signs of the hidden social network. Some get angry and try to force the "official" structure on staff. Better are those who embrace it, identify the key players in this hidden network, and work to win them over.

Read More

Someone close to me had an accident with a guy who didn't have car insurance, which is illegal where I live. The accident was also his fault: he didn't realize traffic in front of him was slowing down.  His story is that he was abroad when his car insurance ran out and figured it can wait a few more days. The damage he caused to both cars added up to several thousand dollars, which it seems he can't afford. He's in trouble.

Now what happened to this guy, assuming his story is true, is an extremely low probability event. Everyone has, at one point or another, delayed attending to something because they figured it's not a big deal. Statistics teaches us that the value of a high probability, low impact event is the same as the value of a low probability, high impact event.

Except that one will probably set you back a bit, while the other just might put you out of the game altogether. 

Read More