Corporate Meditation?

I had a talk with a great company 20 days ago, after almost 2 hours of an amazingly cheerful talk, I learned they developed this mindset of dismissing good talents in pro of so-called promptness, as in, they would market themselves to have the best teams but would dismiss/ignore actual and evident talent because their processes weren’t rigorous enough to detect them, yet, the instruction was very clear: get as many people as possible. They went to a high rate of employee rotation with very basic positions paradoxically unfilled and, in many cases, entire teams were laid off due to poor administrative management.

This reminded me last year when an acquaintance told me s/he had this conversation with someone within a major online auctioning company, s/he learned in many cases as much as 98% of known issues were ditched, worse than that, issues with particular needs requiring tailored attention hadn’t even been reported since over 5 years ago due to a “fully-automated” closed system which denied any and every variation to it. And then this further reminded me of today, when I got curious about an online survey which, incidentally, had no option whatsoever to receive open feedback (which was crucial for this product).

It’s like both real talent and customer caring are not important anymore... have we come to this level of de-humanization and carelessness?

Then, there is this company with an important project with months’ worth of Dead Expenses, about to die (the project) and no way to recover investments due to also killing a previous massive-loss project; when they finally found a professional capable of successfully realigning it within four months, he was fired on job harassment caused by one of the oldest company employees who, incidentally, was among the responsible of killing the first project and letting this to die. A person delivering a project no one else could, and projecting its market positioning was retired based on a shameful (not to say criminal) behavior last acceptable on the nineties. 

So, a question arises: what is happening today with companies falling again on near-to-negligent attitudes? Are they really so eager to over simplify they will forget there must be a balance and some key elements should never be obliterated on complexity?

Same as recent plumbers who use a flexible tube on a water sink where knowledge of yore states there should be a trap tube stopping odorous (and even dangerous) gases, company behavior is urging so much quickness they sacrifice quality; today, listening to feedback seems not important anymore, getting the best talents those companies fought for on the 90s is a marketing brand and not an actual endeavor any longer. I’m not saying companies should go back to the slow-paced ways of the 90s, I’m saying quality must never be compromised in pro of pretending “everything is awesome” when you ignore reality.

Months ago, there was this CEO from a company making $253M revenue in 2018, on his/her 5 years on duty his/her decisions were clever and admirable, leading to growth, mergers, niche-positioning and leadership, yet, there was this plain stupid idea, s/he decided those drawing the money (and ultimately being the core of the business model) now had to pay before using the service too; it became profiting for the sake of sucking it, not as a consequence of their quality. I told him/her it was the most stupid idea anyone ever had on the company, s/he told me it was his/hers, I stood my ground and got hated for it (blocked my contact ever since) YET, the change was made: s/he grindingly understood the feedback and reverted a decision worth $70M of potential loss.

History has a plethora of precedents when monetizing just because whilst sacrificing the heart (quality, audience, appeal) was foolish (remember: John Sculley and Steve Jobs). There is a point when decisions go from fruitful to thoughtless, tampering the heart of a business model is a don’t. In order to keep balance on the quality of whatever you do it is mandatory to: innovate where it is important (updating websites, processes), be thoroughly when context demands it (promise the best teams and actually find them), go carefully when adding profiting ways (pester clients with advertising, charge registering), and as a final example, keep the proper audience listening means (proper surveys, comprehensive support). Some of those may not be easy, but dismissing them on monetizing is not only negligent but may lead to creating chimeras.

Go for growth, go for profits, enterprises are all about it; but never undermine important/key elements: good talents if you’re onto it, solid products if you sell them, performing SaaS if that’s your jam… just never, ever, sacrifice them on cashing; history is restless on reminding us its backfiring.

Image Credit:

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