1 Thought:

The inequality at the work place is out of control. This isn’t a race or gender blog but more so a focus on the “who you know” versus the “talent”.

I always seek to first understand before placing judgement but have seen this over and over in my years in corporate America.

So lets start with understanding the why. People, which include our leadership teams, tend to find comfort in “like minded” teammates. Check out an earlier blog post…(click the link) “I Object”

Choosing those that act, feel, respond similarly to ourselves is a great way to get a lot of yes’s, literally no objections, sounds like absolute pure harmony to me.

Well sadly not how it works. We need discomfort, disagreement, opposition, that battle of the minds to arrive at the best outcomes.

I recall about 15 years ago while working for a leading marketing agency having meetings with all the key stakeholders on my team, in what was accurately called the War Room. We literally started our dialogue at 8:00 AM and ended up not leaving until 11:00 PM. The only rules were to be respectful of each other and agree and understand that when we left the room at the end of the day, despite our disagreements, that we would all row the same direction and sing the same song.

That environment of disagreement created great teams, amazing deliveries for our customer base, as well as massive revenues and earnings.

I simply wont believe that the publicly described passive and weak work environment can’t evolve. This evolution might not be a step forwards without first looking back and understanding how companies used to work and thrive. Great companies were always PC; PC has now become a misused term by people who don’t carry their fair share trying a fast track way to elevate their careers.

Open and honest communication has always been PC and should remain PC. I, like I believe many of your best business leaders, value the mind and opinions of others. I recognize that their input and ideas will make US better.

In summation; the companies using friends and like minded people as their leaders will perish as the markets continue to weed out the weak. The companies that welcome the best and ultimately provide a platform for the best to share ideas will thrive.

Pleased to say I have owned, built, and worked for a few great companies.

Titles are Just Titles.

1 Quote:

“Talent wins games but teamwork and intelligence wins championships”

– Michael Jordan

Jordan has been called out for missing over 9,000 shots in his career and still considered by many as the goat. Kobe Bryant, who I personally have as my favorite player of all time, missed over 14,000 shots. Both players missed thousands of shots and both are considered some of the greatest players of all time. They both share another commonality….hard to work with, against the grain personalities, and they never told people what they wanted to hear they both said and did what they felt was best.

1 Question:

Are you being undervalued? Is the environment you’re in rewarding the wrong people?

Are you in a leadership role and are you rewarding the people that are most like minded rather than the most talented that might disagree?

Make the change before it’s too late.