Sadagopan is one of my favourite reads and today I found this post, reflecting on a book by Jagdish H. Sheth of the same title. Sadagopan summarises the seven habits as:
- The ‘cocoon’ of denial: Find it, admit it, assess it, and escape it
- The stigma of arrogance: Escape this fault that ‘breeds in a dark, closed room’
- The virus of complacency: Six warning signs and five solutions
- The curse of incumbency: Stop your core competencies from blinding you to new opportunities
- The threat of myopia: Widen your view of your competitors?and the dangers they pose
- The obsession of volume: Get beyond ‘rising volumes and shrinking margins’
- The territorial impulse: Break down the silos, factions, fiefdoms, and ivory towers
How true. I can’t begin to count the consulting engagements where the business managers were stuck in one or more of the habits Jagdish identifies. Very often, there are multiple ‘instances’ and it is rare to find one without another popping up. And while Sadagopan talks about change management I prefer to focus attention on the business manager. Here I find David Maister instructive.
If the business is failing it is because management is failing. Rarely is it a disaffected group of employees undermining the business or some other cause (macro-economic factors aside.)
The cancer these habits imbue should not be under-estimated. I liken it to addiction where the only sure way to break the habit is through self-realisation. Threats of insolvency don’t work. Threats of being fired don’t always work. Worker revolt doesn’t work either though it can give management a fright. Tipping point events are hopelessly unpredictable and appeals to logic are useless.
One method I have found works is to create a scenario that reflects the problem and ask management to solve the problem. Management finds it much easier to ‘see’ a problem when it is not directly involved. You then draw comparisons between the scenario and the ‘real’ problem. It’s at that point the penny drops. Not every time, but most times. One thing worth bearing in mind. If you’ve been called in then chances are that someone, somewhere has an inkling things are not as they should be. That’s a start.
