Ostrich Strategy vs Teamwork

Ostrich Strategy

Today a big enterprise (top 10 SCN) took down a post because of a partially critical comment that I had made on their post.  

This company has executives who have black listed me and maligned me as being against them.

Yet this company is a place that I have worked at or with and bled for and only seek to HELP them to improve by showing and sharing how to do better.  

If we are doing the right thing: then we are not afraid of discussion because we are willing to improve, to change, to grow. The problems are with companies that are doing the WRONG things, abusing power, and pushing away employees, clients, business and success for the ego of a few highly paid, high ranking executive suits on a power trip who are in way over their heads and attempting to retain power unjustly given to them. The consistent strategy in these companies is by silencing any perception or rumor that their horrible mismanagement might not actually be good for their particular business. 

The emperor hath no clothes and it is clear and plain to see by their unprofitable shrinking marketshare and constant turnover of technical personnel. 

Guess who we learn more from? Those who disagree with us? Or those who tell us what we want to hear?

If you are paranoid: then you are probably ..... not ...... doing ....... the ........ right ......... thing(s). If you need to spy on your employees? You are the problem, not them. If you have cameras and microphones all over the office; if you read their emails, and discipline otherwise excellent employees for words spoken in a private conversation between 2 people do you not see how YOU are what is wrong with this picture???

If we have to silence customers technical staff because they identified a problem with our product or service: which will help us more?

• Should we: A. blacklist the technical staff who identify the problem with our product?
• Or should we: B. Improve our product?

Why do people tell us what is wrong with our product or service? If they did not care about us: they would not bother to tell us what is wrong with our product!! The very people that malign our products and service are the very people who are MOST trying to help us!!!!

This is how karma works. This is why as we sow, we reap. Whistleblowers are our best friends, especially when they call us out on our mistakes. Whistleblowers see something, say something. We CANNOT SOLVE PROBLEMS THAT WE WONT TALK ABOUT.

A mind is EXACTLY like a parachute, it only works when open.

So to the corporate executives who I am speaking of: I am not your enemy. I am writing in an effort to get through to you because your actions hurt other people that I care about. I want nothing more than for you to succeed and help my shrinking pool of remaining former coworkers to attain the great success that you are all capable of. I would bleed for you, because I have bled for you. It would be a dishonor to my very blood to not speak up and I will continue to while the problems persist and I still have a remaining former coworker telling me about the current management continuing to do the same terrible things. You are not even hurting me, why should I bother? Because it is good karma to care and to act in a productive manner to make the world a better place in each and every way within my capacity to do so. My success comes from making a positive difference, from KAIZEN: the constant and never ending pursuit of improvement in each and every way. Turning a blind eye to problems (the Ostrich Strategy) inhibits success which is not in my interests. I give even when there is no personal gain nor benefit to do so, and even when you do not want it to the point of trying to block me out and silence me.

How can technically illiterate suits make wise decisions on things that tech stuff they do not understand? Let the technical people make the technical decisions WITHOUT some non-tech exec trying to control them? How can we control what we do not understand? We simply cant, and we would make a mess of it each time that we attempt it. We each have skills and that if we only decide on what we know, that we can collaborate on what we dont know to get the best results? We can have power AND wisdom by learning to give our technical folks complete freedom to speak and think (and even criticize) anything and everything. My best team member has been highly critical of me and has taught me MANY things. How did I respond to his criticisms? My making him my backfill, right hand, and XO.

When technical staff report to a non-technical leader or are overseen by a non-technical leader: your org chart is BROKEN. The chain of command from tech to the top must be via a tech management (CIO, CTO, COO), NOT HR. HR should ONLY have oversight of HR functions and NOTHING ELSE. Nobody in tech needs to be concerned with what HR thinks of technical decisions or discussions. Nobody in tech should answer to Accounting, Finance, Purchasing, Sales, Marketing, etc. Dysfunctional org charts cannot create functional results. Nobody unqualified to have mastery of a field should be allowed to manage employees who perform that role. Cant write code? Cant supervise or manage programmers; nor comment on programming.

The ENTIRE premise of Scott Adams Dilbert is to point out the failure of non-technical management with technical oversight. It is so destructive a management process that entire industries are built on making fun of it!!!!

Lack of understanding about how projects are completed results in bad decisions about how to effectively complete projects:

Bad decisions letting vendors decide what is best for standards instead of people who actually know about the products:

While mismanagement might seem funny: in the real world, it is actually harmful and painful to be subject to this type of mismanagement. We cannot effectively manage what we do not comprehend, lest the results be as awful as the cartoons above.

Within a joke there is nearly always an element of truth. These cartoons were inspired by real experiences in the real world and many of us have or are currently experiencing something very similar to these laughable tragedies. And in each case of these different execs from different companies: the Ostrich Strategy has produced the same results: plummeting sales, reduction in marketshare, diminished profitability, turnover, and loss of marquis accounts.

Like everyone else: I did not get here on my own. Everyone that I ever worked with taught me something. Much of my success has been working with industry leaders that were much smarter than I am, though even rookie n00bs taught me by asking WHY we did things a certain way instead of a different one when the answer was "because that is how we always did things ....... until now". You NEVER know where the next genius idea will come from: until you block out all voices but your own. EVERYONE knows something that nobody else does.

Power comes not by who we can abuse, or incite fear in for in an at will market place: the only people who are afraid of us are those who lack the confidence to go somewhere else. What dictators and tyrants end up with are not the best but the most entrenched and/or fearful.

Real power comes from empowering others in our team.

Real power comes from sharing power and leveraging the teams collective power.

My best worker and biggest critic has been so effective that he has led our team in several ways. He is number one in the entire project in customer satisfaction. Not number one just our department, but the entire project. He surpasses me on most days, more often than not. Instead of hiding that fact: I celebrate them publicly here and around the office. Look how awesome our team members are. Because team work is an EXPONENTIAL leveraging of power. Together we wield far more power than alone. Team work makes the dream work and that team does not work until ALL share power EQUALLY. Power in one hand is not a team and of that organization will be left far behind. Put all of the power into one hand and the most that we can do is spin around in circles.

Effective team work is equally distributed power applied in sync and unity with everyone rowing the same direction and in harmony. (Quite the opposite of a tyrannical dictatorship or many corporations).

We are building something special, and I have done a right job of mucking parts of it up during my first year with the NASA contract, but I am learning and our team is teaching me. We have raised the bar across the board and our success is beginning to snowball and has been getting ever increasing positive feedback and notice. We learn as much (if not more) from our mistakes as our successes. We learn from our critics, not our comfort. There is no wisdom head-down in the sand; and cranial-rectal attachment is a liability, not a virtue to our success as individuals and as a company.

My commitment is to KAIZEN to constant improvement, to greater collaboration; to the exponential leveraging of knowledge and skill via team work.