Consensus is often used to create support. While the opposite is achieved. An organization that works from consensus leads to a lack of ownership and decisiveness.
‘Everything then belongs to no one.’
Much “unusable” potential is created as the distinction between the domain of executives and that of employees becomes blurred. This is common in public sector organizations and large, unwieldy, often publicly traded companies.
We call this “the erosion of the hierarchy. Frameworks dilute leading to diffuse decision-making and lack of clarity and focus.
Often this is a process that slowly finds its way into an organization. And, like everything that creeps in slowly, it goes unnoticed until it starts to act as a brake in the execution of daily work. The only thing that seems to have time and attention left is to keep on buffeting in the delusion of the day.
10 symptoms that may indicate hierarchy erosion:
- A relatively large amount of time is spent resolving incidents;
- Work drives the team; we are reactive;
- There is a lack of clarity and focus, ever new priorities;
- There is diffuse and slow decision-making;
- ‘Task forces’ or other temporary facilities are deployed to solve operational problems;
- Employees experience an ever-increasing workload while delivering quality and timeliness becomes an increasingly difficult task;
- Operational issues and issues are frequently escalated “upstairs,” executives perish at work;
- Employees are less and less involved in the organization’s bottom line and do not look beyond their own desks;
- Everyone has their own way of working; there is a free state where intervention is always needed;
- There is a low level of resolution capability, issues remain simmering for a long time or keep popping up.
Lack of clarity, direction, goals and frameworks have caused employees to sit on the bleachers of their own work and watch their supervisor solve problems for them. It is not clear to them what is expected of them and bottlenecks in their personal workload are only symptomatically addressed. Often they feel abandoned and a kind of survival mechanism kicks in.
Breaking through this mechanism and thus making this potential usable requires interventions aimed at restoring the ability to solve problems and the belief in one’s own abilities in the operational teams. Here 3 things are essential.
Build and work on trust; executives have the challenge of rebuilding trust with employees and implementing an established structure of continuous improvement in the team in which employees are actually given influence within clear frameworks.
Create clarity and focus; creating clarity and focus is the domain of the manager. In doing so, ensure adequate decision-making and maintain direction.
Offer help; by offering help in the form of genuine listening and productive dialogue, employees feel “I matter” and that his/her expertise and input is valued. In doing so, provide adequate follow-up to support employees with what is needed for them to do the job well.
Restoration of hierarchy within organizations then leads to significant improvement in service delivery while increasing the well-being of employees and managers.
‘From potential to performance’
Where does your organization stand?
Schedule a 30-minute appointment here so we can explore potential opportunities together.
Want to know more about applying operational excellence in your organization to achieve exceptional levels of service for your customers? Feel free to contact me.
Aris van Bijsterveldt
+31 (0)6 53251375
aris.vanbijsterveldt@opexpro.nl
