Broken Company Broken Souls

Marcia comes in every day without fail and sits at her desk and appears to work diligently at the tasks at hand. She rarely, if ever, calls in sick and is the one person everyone can count on to work through lunch without complaint. Marcia is considered a team player by the staff and appears to be liked by everyone so her boss considers himself fortunate to have her on his team.

Marcia on the other hand has a different opinion. Marcia comes in every day because that is what she has to do to get the paycheck. She gets to her desk and rarely leaves because she has fifteen chat conversations going on at once and of course dozens of personal emails to attend to. She makes use of the high speed Internet to download music to her conveniently hidden IPOD and is often engaged in a mad game of Texas Hold Em going on a game site. She sprinkles in a little bit of work here and there to feel like she contributed her self-imposed important piece to the company's success; knowing in her own mind the company wouldn't likely exist without her critical contribution. She always appears busy to anyone who might be looking but all and all no one checks on her so she is pretty much left to do as she pleases. She passes the time until five o'clock when her real life resumes.

Marcia's company brags about being a cutting edge employer that only hires top-notched talent and that every member of the team is critical to their success. It's self-described literature to the college recruiters is "being the place people want to work." The recruiters know that a candidate's placement at this company is a sure road to a comatose mental existence but the company pays a big placement fee so they keep finding and attracting talent.

The company is filled with many Marcias on ever level of the organization. Secretly in the boardroom the executive team knows the company is struggling and has many issues to contend with, not the least of which is how to get the team on the same page. The "team" doesn't seem to want to get excited about anything these days and though it appears everyone is working hard, things aren't working. Both sales and customer satisfaction are beginning to falter and the new products are way behind in development. The board of directors is demanding changes happen and happen soon. They debate for hours about what's wrong and who's to blame because of course someone has to be blamed. Many executives and and department heads dig in and prepare for the inevitable battle of duck, bob, deflect, assault and cover your ass.

Marcia occasionally looks up from her computer monitor to make sure the suits are still engaged in whatever it is they are talking about. It looks like they are going to be in there for a while yet so she smiles to herself as she realizes she has a little time to do some online Christmas shopping before the next Hold Em tournament starts. She glances at the clock and says to herself only three more hours to go until happy hour. She prepares to dig in and looks across the office and if she didn't know better, she would swear everyone else was doing exactly what she was doing.

So my Ripple friends....a question. Who's wrong in this story? Who's ultimately to blame? And maybe more importantly what needs to be done to fix this?

I realize this is a very loose and open-ended story with few specific details. Or are the details that I have given you somehow oddly familiar? Perhaps with your own corporate environment?

In my next post we will look at what's possibly going on but in the mean time I would love to hear your take on what is happening with Marcia and her company.

Visible Leadership - The Principal Lesson

My last post on visible leadership must have hit a cord as I received a number of phone calls and emails on the subject. I always love it when I hit on a subject that my readers feel passionate enough to want to dialogue about. So thank you for those of you who reached out to connect on the subject. We certainly had some great conversations and I hope you will keep em coming.

I wanted to share with you another example of visible leadership that has just stuck with me since yesterday.

I needed to work on a project that needs some severe tweaking and decided to head home for the day to put a little time in on it before both of my boys got home from school and my time would not be my own. My oldest son Zachary's school is in walking distance of our home and one of the main roads that leads into our particular subdivision is usually tended to by one of the mother's who is our dutiful crossing guard. As I reached the intersection I noticed a nicely dressed man standing guard over the crosswalk and I automatically assumed our regular crossing guard mother must be sick or busy and one of the dads was chipping in to help out.

As I crept closer to the crosswalk I slowed down and stopped as I saw out substitute crossing guard was attempting to herd a group of kids safely across. The man smiled big and waved as he entered the crosswalk and as each kid passed by he appeared to say something to each of them and offered a pat or two on the head. As the little guys and gals reached the other side of the crosswalk they all had smiles as big as Texas on their faces; not doubt a result of the positive attention they had just been given.

As the man turned and waved in appreciation again for my stopping, I noticed it wasn't some nicely dressed father being the substitute crossing guard for the day...no it was Mr. Ryan, the principal of my son's school Brushy Creek Elementary. I couldn't help it but my immediate thought was why is our school's principal doing having to do crossing guard duty? A man of his position is far too important and must have other important things to do than to do this.

Then it hit me....visible leadership!

When I reached the house I told my wife Kathy about what I had just seen and experienced. She said, "Oh Mr. Ryan does that from time to time. Our other Principal never did it but Mr. Ryan sure doesn't seem to mind helping out when and where he is needed." How cool is that? More importantly, what another fine example of visible leadership!

Visible leadership as I mentioned in my last post is the willingness to do those things that you ask others to do. I am not quite sure if the kids understand or appreciate the lesson Mr. Ryan is teaching them but Zachary now does. Everyone chips in where they are needed and Mr. Ryan's willingness to come down several blocks from the school to "pitch in" says a lot about him as a leader and steward of our children. I told Zachary he needs to appreciate how amazingly cool it is that his principal is willing to go wherever he is needed to insure that his students are able to get home safe and sound.

Mr. Ryan has shown me yet another fine example of visible leadership and how the little things actually make a big difference when it comes to being the kind of leader people want to follow and emulate. Great job Mr. Ryan!!!

So what crosswalks need tending to at your company today?


Ripple On!!!

Ripple Connection Question of the Week

Ripple Connection Questions are a unique way to engage people in conversation. Whether with a complete stranger or someone you already know, but want to know better, using Ripple Connection Questions (RCQ) accelerate the dialogue and deepen the connection. The questions are by design, fun to ask and fun to answer, and can take your connection to an entirely new level. Come on, break out of that shell of yours and start Rippling.

So with no further adieu....this week's question is:

There's 35 days left to go in 2007....

What do you plan to do with
the time left in this year to
insure that this year is one
of your best so far?

It's a valid and very revealing question don't you think?

So what's your answer?

What are you going to do with the next 35 gifts that you are given in 2007?

Ripple On!!!


Steve