Are You (Unintentionally) Sabotaging Your Business?

The following article by Stefan Theme, William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, is complicated (5-minute read) yet it is insightful when it gets to the 10 points that can lead to sabotaging your business.

1. “Insist on doing everything through ‘channels.’ Never permit shortcuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.”
2. “Make ‘speeches.’ Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your ‘points’ by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.”
3. “When possible, refer all matters to committees, for ‘further study and consideration.’ Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.”
4. “Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.”
5. “Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.”
6. “Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to reopen the question of the advisability of that decision.”
7. “Advocate ‘caution.’ Be ‘reasonable’ and urge your fellow conferees to be ‘reasonable’ and avoid haste, which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.”
8. “Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.”
9. “To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.”
10. “Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.”

The lesson here, says Theme, is that some of the biggest threats to organizational performance can and do come from within.

Could that be you at your firm?  Read the entire article at MIT Sloan Management Review.