You Are the Solution

Yet again the survey says that CEOs are still complaining that they can’t find good managers. 

Well, I have good new and good new.  The good news first.  I found the problem.  The good news?  You are the solution.  Now that we identified the problem, we can fix it. 

“You can solve problems. You can’t solve opportunities.” 
~ Slim Fairview. 
From, The Quotations of Slim Fairview © 2014. 
Robert Asken. All rights reserved.

Now that the legal language is out of the way….

If you don’t want to hear it from me, listen to Einstein:

“You can’t solve the problem using the same thinking you used to create the problem.”

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Then Again…

Einstein also said, “You don’t measure the intelligence of a fish by its ability to climb a tree.”

To which Slim replied, “If you want someone to climb a tree, hire a cat!”

To explain why Einstein is beloved and Slim is not, is easy.

Everyone believes that Einstein’s quotation supports his or her views. They are wrong.  

Everyone believes that Slim’s quotation does not.  They are right.

I’ve divided this article up into three parts.

• The Solution

• A Reminder

• Predictions as to why you will fail to solve your problems yet again.

Slim’s Four Rules of Communication:

• Precision

• Concision

• Enumerate 

• Specify

Change the name of Human Resources to Personnel.

Have Personnel sort the incoming resumés and forward them to the senior people in the departments where the applicants will be working if hired.

Find a new company to design and build your on-line application website—if I can’t convince you to do away with it altogether.  Hiring good managers is less expensive than hiring bad managers with that cost-effective on-line hiring system.

If you keep the on-line hiring system, make changes to the required fields to make them less constraining.  Also, use a different pre-interview psychological evaluation test or get rid of them altogether.

Fire Managers.  Worry less about employee evaluations and worry more about evaluating the managers who do the employee evaluations.  If your managers are incompetent, then their employee evaluations are worthless. 

Leadership:

“Leaders are defined by their followers.” 

“You can’t lead if you can’t manage.”

“Look behind you. If people are following you, you’re a leader. If they’re not, you’re not.” 

"In a time of stress, the employees will instinctively look to their leader.  This person is not always the boss."

~ Slim Fairview  Copyright © 2019

Eliminate leadership training programmes and seminars, the people who need them, and the people who suggest using them.  This includes the handing out of three-fold brochures and smiley-face key chains! 

Do away with time-wasting, team-building exercises. 

Replace committees with teams.  One good manager will have a team working effectively. One bad manager never will, no matter how many team building programmes you pay for.

Have the person in charge of the team choose them members of the team. 

N.B.  A team does not build a bicycle. One person builds a bicycle. A team builds a thousand bicycles.

Teamwork is for Teams.

REMINDER

You are the one complaining you can’t find good managers. 

You keep looking in the same places. 

You keep using the same process. 

You keep complaining. 

You are the problem 

You are the boss. 

You change the way you do things. 

You change the way your company does things. 


SLIM PREDICTS 

You will delegate the job. (Read: abrogate responsibility.) 

Your delegate will form a committee and call it a team. 

You will approve the same failed thinking to solve the problem that was used to create the problem. 

You will continue to have problems. 

You will say, “Slim’s advice won’t work, can’t work, doesn’t work, didn’t work.  

You will accept the responsibility instead of taking the blame. 

You will say, “Don’t play the blame game.”  

You will say, “There is no “I” in team.”  

You will say, “Winners never quite and quitters never win.” 

You will hire the same type of people to solve the problem using the same type of thinking but under a different name.  

“Consensus-building is “Group-Think” built by a consultant.” ~ Slim Fairview  

You will begin consensus-building.  

You will continue to have problems.  

Conclusion 

In my PowerPoint Presentation,

“Global Management: A shift in the paradigm of corporate America”   

I showed several organisational charts and listed their flaws. 

I also explained “Group Norms.”  View the presentation.  It is neither that long, nor that complicated.  

Rethink the way you rethink the problem. 

Rethink the way you rethink the solution. 


Slim Fairview’s Empirical Method of Analysis 

Did you try it your way? 

Yes. 

Did things get more high, good, better?  

No.  

Did things get more low, bad, worse?  

Yes.  

Conclusion?  

Stop doing things your way.  


Plan B:  Stop Complaining.  


If you find anything here to be helpful, please don’t hesitate to send me a really tricked-out Mac Book and to tuck a few dollars into the envelope along with the thank you note.  


If not, at least send me a post card.  I don't collect stamps, but the post cards will make for interesting conversation the next time I go to "Seniors". 

Bob Asken

Box 33
Pen Argyl, PA 18072  


Sincerest regards, 

Slim 

slimfairview@yahoo.com 

Copyright © 2014 Robert Asken  

All rights reserved.

TeamWork or a Team?

This is true.  However, witness a football team.

When the Quarterback get the ball from the Center, there is no consensus building. Each member of the team has a job to do.  Each member of the team does his job, not someone else's job.

The Guards guard.  The Tackles tackle.  The QB decides whether to pass, run, or hand the ball off to someone in the backfield.

There is no discussion, shared vision, visioning process, concern about group-think, or consensus building.

There is a goal.  Sometimes things are too obvious for people to see them.

The actions of the QB are based on rapidly changing conditions.  There is no discussion and certainly no committee.

Corporate America has spent Millions on Team Building

And how is it working out for America?

Millions invested....and a vested interest in protecting their turf.

Consensus does not take place in the huddle. Before the huddle, each member of the team has a job to do. That individual responds to the conditions he is confronted with and whatever the QB said in the huddle becomes irrelevant.  More on this in a moment.  After we discuss...

Trust

Trust is important.  However, this goes to the underlying basis of that trust.

You may trust me completely, however, if I am a bad football player, an opposing team member will get past me and tackle you. There must be a basis for that trust and in football as in business that basis is the ability to do the job.

Back to the individual having a job to do. His job to do. This is Delegation of Authority. The quarterback does not stand there directing you:  Watch out, watch him, block them.  Again, the delegation of authority is based on the ability of that team member to do that team member's job.

Back to the millions spent by corporations on team building.

America has spent millions, if not billions, over the decades on diet books, get-rich-quick books, and self-help books.  On that basis we should all be skinny, rich, and well-adjusted.  We are not.  We are fat, poor and dysfunctional.  [Well, except perhaps for the people who don't buy diet books, get-rich-quick-books, and self-help books.]

The basis of millions if not billions spent, the credentials of those authors writing those books, and the reception of the public has not justified the pursuit or the expense.

We no longer use the empirical method of scientific inquiry.  Now, we come up with a theory and seek data to support it.  We write a book, prey on gullible people, and use credentials, bogus science, and financial success as compurgation, justification, and validation

Now, how is America doing?  How are the EuroCrats doing?  Perhaps it is time we abandon the Process.  Change the Process.  To start:

Everyone who goes around with consensus on his lips should be boiled in his own pudding....!  The same goes for the word Committee.

If you want team building in your company, buy the book, How to Play Football.  Start a company football team, and build a lot of good will among your employees.  If you want to succeed in business, run your team like the football team on the field.

As Yogi Berra once said, "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."

Watch what happens on the football field.  That is what is going on in the business world.
\

If you find anything here to be helpful, please don't hesitate to send me a really tricked out Google Pixelbook and to tuck a few dollars into the envelope along with the thank you note.  Slim.


Sincerest regards,


Slim

Copyright (c) 2011 Bob Asken
All rights reserved.

slimfairview@yahoo.com