An Oak Leaf Consulting Executive Associate went into have a chat with a CEO of a large company. The meeting had been set up by the CEO’s Administrative Assistant. The company was having more than its fair share of problems in an intensely competitive market, and things weren’t getting any better.
When our associate entered the office, the CEO blustered “What the *!!# . . .” did our associate think they were going to tell the CEO that the CEO didn’t already know? As this was a gratis two hour consult, without sitting, the associate pulled out the signed nondisclosure agreement, handed it to the CEO, looked the CEO in the eye and said “You’re stuck on STUPID!” That said, the OLC Executive Associate turned and left the office. The rest of the story is downright belly laugh funny, but that isn’t the point.
The point is finding yourself and your organization seemingly frozen in the headlights of an ever increasing powerful reality that is pulling the pins out of your competitiveness and threatening your on-going existence.
Leaders will point to their business plans, their vision, mission, and strategies. But these aren’t worth anything unless they have set up intimately linked metrics by which the organization can audit the correctness of a strategy and the plans and actions to accomplish it. Without credible and innovative measuring systems that audit in real time, the outcome is inevitable – “Stuck on Stupid”. Learning organizations increase their odds of winning; clueless organizations drift to wherever the floodwaters take them.
Know a business / organization leader, a business owner, or an entire company “Stuck on Stupid”?
