Lindsey Blakely interviewed me a few weeks ago for a BNET article on “Five Signs That You Have a Crummy Job.” She identifies five ways that downturns can make life worse even for people in organizations who have survived layoffs. Blakely marches through unpleasant changes such as reduced innovation, severed emotional ties, a climate of fear, and the one I talked about — that the bureaucrats sometimes seize power. The classic effect is that the rest of the organization shrinks, while the number of people who deal with money and enforcing rules increases, leaving fewer people to do the actual work of the organization. And those that remain are subjected to more and more red tape that is instituted in the name of saving money. So the people doing the real work get less and less efficient, and the rule mongers keep reproducing themselves, and thus write and enforce more rules.
BUT I think that it is important to point out that tough times don’t always lead to these and other dysfunctions. Some of the most effective leaders use financial troubles and other crises as an opportunity to make changes that can strengthen the organization. For example, check out this post at Harvard Business Online on Alan Meyer’s classic study that compares the different reactions of hospitals to a crisis. Those leaders that labeled the crisis as an opportunity– rather than a threat — were able to make some impressive changes in their organizations. Here is the advice I gave in that post last year based on Meyer’s study and other research, and I think it holds pretty well for leaders in a variety of settings:
If you want to make the best out of a good situation, focus on what is going wrong and can go wrong.
If you want to make the best out of a bad situation, focus on what is going right and could go right.
Thanks, and let me know what you think of the crummy job article, including any other crummy things that happen and — especially — how to stop crummy things from happening to organizations when the going gets tough.
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