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Just as an explorer needs markers to find their way, so do organizations.
If you have studied the Lewis and Clark expedition you will know that
Clark was able to chart their course extremely accurately considering the
instruments he had to work with. I want to share some markers with
respect to organizations and how you can ³translate´ them into a better
understanding of what they indicate about the organization.
þ
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this statement has
become ubiquitous in many organizations and industry groups. So what
does this really mean? Possibilities include;

Êc þe know that we are a ³status quo´ organization and you would

become quickly bored or frustrated by the lack of organizational
and personal growth potential.
Êc People want to be part of a winning team and this team is not one.
Êc £n organization that espouses this ³you are overqualified´
statement is in a slow (or fast) decline in performance and
competitiveness.
Êc If you are a high powered applicant, be thankful when they tell you
that you are overqualified. That allows you to conclude that their
leadership is weak and you wouldn¶t want to work there anyway.
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!c#c#c#c$this tells you that they are more interested in confessing that
their poor performance is someone else¶s fault than in facing the reality
of their own performance problems. You can only use that argument
with a straight face after you are sure you have perfected your own
performance to its fullest and have no room to improve without
removing the impediment you want to complain about.
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There is only one constant in the world and that is change. You either
face it taking it as an opportunity or you are victimized by it.
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%oops! This reminds me of a
story about Mack Trucks back in the first half of the twentieth century.
They had designed a product line that was the current state of the art and
considerably ahead of that of any competitor. They were so confident
that they shut down their design function because they thought no one
would ever be able to do better than they had done. They were wrong
and squandered their lead causing much pain as they tried to restart
development, something they should have kept all along.
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oh, my goodness, this is political
correctness run amok. Bossidy and Charan in their best selling
management book r
 

 
 
 
 

discuss the need for ³robust dialog´ if you aspire to creating a
³performance´ organization. þhat they are saying is that you must
allow and encourage people to disagree vigorously so that the ³truth´
needed for good decisions, is exposed. Organizations that suppress the
truth through political correctness and its brother Group Think are
doomed to poor performance because their ³be nice´ ethic suppresses
the lifeblood (truth) they need to succeed.

£s a successful manager of high performing teams I can say that the first
one; we can¶t hire you because you are overqualified is the most
ridiculous to me. þhen I had an opening I looked for the best qualified
person I could find, even someone who could compete with me and
perhaps beat me out. You need strong people to perform well and hiring
the best gives you the opportunity to grow the organization quickly to
the point where even the ³overqualified´ need to grow with it. £ good
definition of the duty of a leader is, ³£ 

  
 
 

 
 





  

   

  

      

  

 


  


  

.´

Too, the truth suppression of political correctness and Group Think

guarantee an organization will not be able to perform well. Kill them
both; RIP. Is the goal to be nice or to perform the mission at an
excellent level? You can¶t have both all of the time. You can be nice
much of the time but there are times when you can¶t if you want to
perform. I remember stories of Jimmy David the defensive back for the
Detroit Lions championship teams of the 1950s. His teammates told of
hating him in practice because he was so hardnosed in his tackling. But
they also said they loved him in the games when he made great plays
regularly. If you don¶t practice with passion you can¶t perform with
passion.

Keep these markers in mind when assessing an organization to work for,

invest in or buy a product or service from.