Shaping organisational success – Part 2 – Ground Rules : Organisation & Staffing

By Horst Simon, The Risk Culture Builder

ORGANISATION AND STAFFING

Ground Rule 1: People, not the structure, make the organisation work or fail. Dedicated people can make any structure work.

Each employee is responsible for developing his/her own life-long learning.

Ground Rule 2: All Managers should have back-up people who are potentially better qualified for their jobs than they are themselves. No manager has a right to feel he or she has done a good job if a logical successor is not clearly visible always.

Ground Rule 3: With age, people reach a point where their job responsibilities move beyond their energy level or capabilities. This is natural and happens to all of us. The organisation has an obligation to those who have served with loyalty: they should be compensated fairly and given opportunities to make a continuing contribution. However, if they can no longer pull their weight, they must be removed from the mainstream.

Ground Rule 4: Every manager must make sure that individuals in the organisation know what is expected of them, how their assignments fit into the whole, and how their performance will be measured. Everyone should have a set of goals and deadlines to meet, so that no misunderstanding arises about what must be done. These become the standards for measuring a person’s performance.

Ground Rule 5: Be alert for organisational misfits. No matter how well people are screened and evaluated, misfits will show up. Quick, decisive action is needed to weed them out.

• Those who do not have the integrity or intellectual honesty necessary to win trust, who don’t give recognition to subordinates for ideas and accomplishments, and don’t promote an open organisation.
• Politicians who always have their fingers up in the air to see which way the wind blows, who are more interested in making the right move than in DOING the right thing.
• Bullies who are bastards to their subordinates and sycophants to their superiors.

Ground Rule 6: Suspect committees. Most are a complete waste of time. They only appear to get something done while syndicating the risk on tough decisions and issues. In the mainstream of business, management there is simply no place for committees. Committees never make decisions and it is impossible to hold a committee accountable for anything.