Is "Process Worship" Killing Your Organization?!?

process worship (proc-es wur-ship): 1. The act of valuing 'the way things are done' over any actual outcome. 2. Strongly adhering to bureacratic rules even in the face of disaster.

In an article on yahoo today, a report requested by the U.S. Pentagon reports that U.S. Marines on the front lines in Iraq are not getting the supplies they need due to bureacratic entanglements.

The report was supposed to be presented in March 2007, but according to the article by Richard Lardner,

"The presentation was canceled by Marine Corps leaders because its contents were deemed too contentious, according to a defense official familiar with the document. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it publicly."

Is your organization suffering from process worship? As a leader, how do you know?

You can find out in the same way this report did: by asking the operators in the field. Whether you have an international sales force or your entire team works out of one office, you can learn about bureacratic SNAFU's if you listen openly to the people on your front line.

Bottom Line: Smart leaders eliminate process worship because it slows their organizations down. In today's global economy, slow organizations are ineffective organizations.

Leading People the Black Belt Way book review...

"If you’re looking for a goldmine of timeless leadership treasures, you’ll want to add Leading People The Black Belt Way to your collection..."

So begins this review of Leading People the Black Belt Way by Lora Adrianse.

Other excerpts from Ms. Adrianse's blog include:

"... This book is a great investment because it’s jam packed with hidden gems. It’s so content rich that he could have easily broken it down to several smaller, simpler books. Warneka clearly put his heart and soul into this piece of work..."

... and ...

"... If you couldn’t put down Daniel Goleman’s books on emotional intelligence, you’re likely to be thrilled with this book. On the other hand, if you found Goleman’s books to be great reference material versus engaging and inspirational, you’ll likely feel the same way about this one..."



You can read Ms. Adrianse's full blog here.

Bellowing Dinosaurs: The Perils of Listening to Academic Advice

College people are smart, so college professors are even smarter, right?

Not always.

Today's world is moving fast (you know this), and many tenured academics have not been in the workforce for 10, 20 or even 30 years. Insulated (and often isolated), these educational professionals have the job security of tenure have very little incentive to change the status quo. In fact, it is often best for them to protect the status quo, because that is what will keep students headed in their direction, keeping them employeed.

Tenure is killing today's academic world. But that's a discussion for another time.

With the rotting infrastructure that tenure can create, more often than not the voice of academia is the voice of the dinosaur, who, like Tyrannosaurus Rex in the movie Jurassic Park, would bellow loudly at anything that threatened the status quo.

Like newspaper reporting.

My brother (and co-author of a new book) Patrick just alerted me to an article on Yahoo News about James Macpherson, editor and publisher of the two-year-old Web site pasadenanow.com in Pasedena, California who is outsourcing stories to reporters in India.

Entrepreneurs, as many of you know, are a hearty breed who need to be flexible and adaptive ... everything that academics are not.

Mr. Macpherson, our entrepreneurial hero in this tale is reported as saying (all quotes are from the article, which was written by AP writers Justin Pritchard and Matthew Rosenberg):

"I think it could be a significant way to increase the quality of journalism on the local level without the expense that is a major problem for local publications," said the 51-year-old Pasadena native. "Whether you're at a desk in Pasadena or a desk in Mumbai, you're still just a phone call or e-mail away from the interview."

Amen, Mr. Macpherson! Good for you for recognizing the reality of the global community in which we live!

Now, let's look at what the dinosaurs say:

"Nobody in their right mind would trust the reporting of people who not only don't know the institutions but aren't even there to witness the events and nuances," said Bryce Nelson, a University of Southern California journalism professor and Pasadena resident. "This is a truly sad picture of what American journalism could become."

Spoken like someone who has known an institution for far too long. These days, most employees, including reporters, stay at their jobs these days for less than 5 years. So where are the nuances?

Let's continue...

"It is a shaky business proposition as well, said Uday Karmarkar, a UCLA professor of technology and strategy who outsources copy editing and graphics work to Indian businesses. If the goal is sophisticated reporting, he said, Macpherson could end up spending more time editing than the labor savings are worth."

Why? Professor Karmarkar seems to be implying that Indian reporters are not capable of sophisticated writing. Rather elitist, no? There are no reporters in India who can write? Um....does Professor Karmarkar understand we're living in a global village?

I say, "GO, James Macpherson! Bully for you for being willing to innovate!"

Bottom Line: The next time you read about an academic pontificating--especially when said blathering has to do with the cutting-edge of business development--beware. Remember that many tenured faculty are little more than bellowing dinosaurs: low on practical marketplace experience and high on protecting the status quo. Listen to what they have to say, but take it with a LARGE helping of salt.

Science Confirms Human Relatedness

The media must have missed this one in its strident attempts to catalog the latest Paris Hilton escapades....

A very important story for all leaders appeared in the March 2006 issue of National Geographic (okay, I'm writing this in May, 2007 ... I'm a bit behind in my reading. :-).....

In an article called "The Greatest Journey," National Geographic research James Shreeve states:

"Scientists now calculate that all living humans are related to a single woman who lived roughly 150,000 years ago in Africa, a "mitochondrial Eve." She was not the only woman alive at the time, but if geneticists are right, all of humanity is linked to Eve through an unbroken chain of mothers." (p. 62).

This is ground-breaking, earth-shattering information. Each and every one of us -- every single human you pass today -- is related. The taxi cab driver who drove you to the airport is a distant cousin. The CEO's secretary is a long-lost aunt.

This information is revolutionary because science has now confirmed what most World Wisdon Traditions have been saying for years ... that we are all part of the same family, or, as Mr. Shreeve states in his article, "Increasingly refined DNA studies have confirmed this opening chapter of our story over and over: All the various shaped and shaded people of Earth trace their ancestry to African hunter-gatherers." (p. 62)

So, you might ask, what difference does this make for leaders? I'll suggest that the difference is enormous, because it brings up this very important question:

Now that you know everyone on the planet is related to you, will you treat people the same way you did before?

Think about it.

Leading the Earth...

On my Healing Katrina blog, I discussed an article about global warming. You can read it here.

Bottom Line: Great leaders take the Earth and future generations into account when they make leadership decisions. Poor leaders do not. It's that simple.