Off topic - well maybe not entirely

I think it’s time for another rant. You see I’ve always struggled with tolerating ineptitude when it come crashing directly into the path of people trying to do their best. In fact a lot of my life in leadership roles focused on trying to remove barriers to performance, opening up opportunities for people to excel. I won’t say I always succeeded or that my approach was universally appreciated but at least my heart was in the right place.

Excellence, it seems to me, is still possible and still worth striving towards. So why on earth are we seeing a rebound from those heady days of removing bureaucracy? Why are we seeing reimposition of ‘rules’ and ‘forms’ and other such nonsense? What has lead to this sudden cascade of the ill informed and in-over-their-heads? What has lead to their rise in power??

I have some ideas but they all too much seem like some cantankerous old guy reminiscing of his days of glory. Best leave those unsaid.

Here are a few things that sparked this rant.

I run a small business. It’s just me, myself and I. The three of us usually get along and we can muddle through a myriad of issues to get things done. So, when I’m approached for a relatively small consulting job by someone who knows me well and has experience with my approach I’m only too happy to try and help - usually. In the last year or so that position is starting to change. Why you ask? Well, it’s about those bureaucrats.?

When ‘landing’ a job requires me to suffer through an inquisition, that job loses its appeal. When I must fill in (even electronically) multiple forms to register as a supplier, that job loses its appeal. When I must divulge the very same personal identity information we all strive to protect every day simply so it can end up in some vulnerable corporate database outside of my control - well that’s where I draw the line I think.

It’s not a once off event. Several times in the last year or so I’ve been asked to provide my clients with exactly the sort of information they would need to practice the sort of identity theft scammers work tirelessly to achieve. Name, address, bank account details, and to top it all off… date of birth! And that’s -my- name, as a director of my little company, not the company name.?

Honestly, if I were a little old man clicking on a link to get ‘support’ because my PC has a virus, that is exactly the same info the scammer would be teasing out of me.?

Nope, not going to happen.

Yeah, yeah, I know… this is all so the mega-corporate multinational can ‘verify my business identity and risk’.?My problem is the asymmetrical nature of the relationship. Maybe I should insist on getting my clients to provide their directors, names, dates of birth, personal addresses and bank details! Yeah that would go well.

Along with these egregious data demands go a litany of questions that are irrelevant when there is such asymmetry. ‘Do you have a policy to ensure you do not have modern slavery in your supply chain?’ Hmm…. Let me think on that for, oh, 1 millisecond. ‘Do you have a policy to ensure all employees are paid above the minimum wage?’… ditto.

It’s about like asking some random person in the street if they know what the working conditions are like in the home kitchen that provided the bespoke bottle of jam they used on this morning’s toast.

Let me see. My supply chain. It’s tantamount to nonexistent. A computer, maybe some note paper and a pen. Do I pay myself more than the minimum wage? That depends on whether or not I can wade through the 100 pages you need to fill in.

See, I said it was a rant.?

These guys are trying to use a one-size-fits-all approach to managing their suppliers. That one-size covers different business models, turnover, and products. It covers businesses across multiple continents and cultures. And that’s the real problem here. One-size-fits-all really means “one-size-fits-no-one-all-that-well”. It ends up slipping off your shoulders while squeezing at the waist.

Part of the tragedy with this retreat to bureaucracy is that the people who want my help know it’s all ridiculous. Sadly they too are beholden to the corporate behemoth. Unable to influence its direction. Instead, they are reduced to gaming the system and finding loopholes while still keeping within the letter of the corporate law. I even had one client warn me beforehand and then recommend ways to get around the unseemly demands.

That’s what this sort of bureaucracy breeds. Rule breaking. No one can ‘live up to the standard’ and so that standard ends up being an utter failure. Either that or it becomes a barrier against excellence.

Right. So that’s the rant part over. Now to bring this back to my ‘favourite’ subject the JORC Code and Competent Person.

I see this growth of roadblocking bureaucracy in some of the discussions around the Code too. In trying to solve a perceived problem, the ‘rules’ are being tightened. And, those rules, much like the supplier on-boarding I’ve been complaining about, are trying to be one-size-fits-all. Inevitably the increased regulation will encourage some to find the loopholes, to find the ways to game the system. Frankly, by their very existence it’s likely those ‘tighter rules’ will highlight the very weaknesses we are trying to protect, leaving them not strengthened, but more exposed.

I’ll have more to discuss on ‘rules’ and ‘rewarding A while expecting B’ in future posts.

Just be careful…. If you see my name on the byline there’s a chance I’m being impersonated! If some of the multinationals get there way

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There’s an old managment saying - don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions. Also known as ‘that’s not my monkey!’. Here’s my simple solution to the supplier on-boarding question. Do a risk assessment first - what is the size of the contract? What is the business impact if the whole thing goes south? And then adopt a commensurate on-boarding process.

Otherwise, simply admit you don’t want to support small business and be done with it. And that probably includes those local communities you guys are so proud of ‘supporting’.