Things are going well now, money is rolling in, money is rolling in….
Easy to turn a blind eye to reality when things are going well. You see how the money rolls in, you manufacture, you sell. The staff are struggling to deliver and then it is important that the management sees if the staff is struggling with firefighting in order to complete the deliveries. How are they really? Unfortunately, you only know an average of 9.7% of what is really going on in the organization, so you close your eyes unconsciously, perhaps?
Basing their decisions on just 9.7% of how your most important asset is doing, shouldn’t feel good?
I often hear the “argument” that things are going well now, money is rolling in money is rolling in…so it’s going well right?
Perhaps Sony, Ford and Motorola can serve as good examples of how things can go if you don’t know how the organization is really doing? “It’s fine” was converted to “Didn’t think of that”
The likelihood of future greatness is maximized by performing well on the metrics that make an organization less fragile in the long term. This is often called resilience, but the word should be supplemented and include a better defined purpose adapted to a sustainable organization.
The fact that you indicate high performance today is no guarantee of high performance in the future.
We have seen many examples of such companies/organizations, which have not been able to cope with the changes required to manage the strength and financial resources you possess when you are at your peak. We have found that there is a very important metric that is a strong indicator of a robust sustainable and healthy organization.
This is its internal security performance, which indicates how many employees are harmed when the money rolls in. This applies not only physically but mostly psychologically. Psychological safety is crucial to not being injured in your work. Fairness and valuation basis important.
But we have ISO 45001?
That this is not just a cover on the bookshelf is important. A good book is “Jakten på pappertigern” by Andreas Odhage about how we avoid that these important elaborated lines do not just become something that warms on the bookshelf or on a server in the IT system.
The reason may be that safety performance is an inherent organizational value, which unfortunately is rarely used for marketing to the outside world. When was the last time you bought a device from a company based on its outstanding internal security? I have a couple of companies in mind, that I would like to advise to start thinking about it and now!
Other intrinsic values, such as diversity, sustainability or quality, are usually used for external marketing and communication. This makes them vulnerable to misinterpretation, exaggeration or even fraud or as it is called white washing! Green washing is also relevant today.
The company’s own inner values are important and also the foundations of the prevailing Ethics and Morality!
Take care of your most important asset. Your co-workers..yes your friends!
(Backed up by data from these two books “Good to Great” and “Built to Last” by Jim Collins!)