A Thing or Two.
Most of middle management has been working for the Pharma organisation for a number of years. Collectively, they knew a thing or two about how the place could be improved.
They put their heads together and came up with a good plan to fix the organisations problems. It would cost a few million dollars but the saving would be many times the initial investment.
They presented their ideas to senior management who rejected them on a number of quite reasonable grounds.
- Not Invented Here
It would threaten the security of senior management’s position if they weren’t the ones to come up with the initiative. What do people think we are here to do? Senior management is the brains of the organisation, right?
- Lack of Strategic Focus
Anything that middle management could come up with obviously lacks the strategic focus that only senior management can provide. The outlook from board-room level encompasses a much broader perspective than anything lower down.
- Better Things
The quality of middle management’s presentation was amateurish looking, scrappy flipcharts and unformatted text. Poor visuals and worst of all, no executive summary. Senior management were used to better things.
4 Un-hedged Risk
Middle management’s proposal contained no allowance for external review by industry consultants. The inherent risk was unacceptable. Who would wear it if things went tits-up down the track?
But everyone agreed that improvement were necessary, and a little later they became essential. So senior management engaged a firm of top-tier consultants to work up a proposal.
The consultants interviewed everybody that mattered, especially middle management, and put forward a renewal initiative. By an amazing coincidence the proposal that the consultants presented was almost exactly the same as the one developed by middle management.
Senior management bought it hook, line and billion dollar price tag.
The consultants put in an implementation team to work in tandem with middle management.
The Critical Difference.
Middle management noticed the similarity between the proposals, but they also noticed the difference. And it was that difference that caused the initiative to fail, sending the organisation down the road to extinction.
The difference has many names, but the one I like best is Skin.
Skin in the game.
By the time middle management’s ideas had been hijacked, packaged, re-badged and sold, the proposal had become “Skin-free”.
The consultants had been paid, senior management were off the hook, middle management no longer owned the proposals, everybody had the very best reasons not to give a shit.
The implementation team talked a lot about engagement, buy-in, commitment, involvement, passion, forward focus, big hairy audacious goals, and alignment,…..but the battle was lost.
Let’s hope the lesson is not lost on those organisations who have yet to understand ‘Skin’.
(Tomorrow's Post: Christmas Pharma)
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