The last blog on due diligence started a thought process I’d like to share. I also invite any comments from you, the readers. Perhaps a detailed discussion will result and help us all.
The company’s leadership or management teams obviously bear responsibility for insuring that the company operates at peak efficiency. Their competency has a great deal to do with how successful the company is. Does this mean that the company’s leadership bears all the responsibility when things go bad and failure looms large in the mirror? I don’t think so.
It’s easy to pass around the congratulations and best wishes when things go right and the profit margin is at a level everyone likes. What happens when things go bad? Too often there’s a lot of finger pointing, generally at the leadership. The leaders, in turn, look for excuses as to why things went bad. It isn’t often that you have a company sit down as a group – leadership and staff – and take a good hard look at why things aren’t working. To repeat my theme – here’s where a competent problem solver may be invaluable. He or she can effectively facilitate the meetings to insure that the focus remains where it should, on correctly identifying the problems and implementing realistic, long lasting solutions. Isn’t it in everyone’s best interests that the company remains operational?
Employees have as much a stake in the process as the leadership and stockholders. Here’s the bottom line. Employees also bear some responsibility for problem solving. The leadership owes them the opportunity to participate in the identification of problems and the development and implementation of solutions. Employees owe the leadership their full dedication to resolving the problems once and for all, to the benefit of everyone concerned.