My sport coach said: if you want to see unnecessary fat, jump infront of a mirror and observe what’s wiggling. Find out what this has to do with Organisations.
Many customers ask for a „team workshop“. And when I ask what the status quo of their team is, I am surprised. They don’t have a vision, no mission, they haven’t even talked about business value, metrics, roles, way of working, necessary skills, culture, values… they don’t know their customers (!)… They just ‚work‘. And I wouldn’t even call them a team. How is that possible?
If you’re a consultant/facilitator, and your customer doesn’t know what his role in the org is – they are what I call ‚the fat of the company‘.
Lacking vision and mission, they…
- start doing silly stuff playing ‚busy‘
- start wars for territory
- start redundant projects
- increase complexity
- bother others with half baked ideas
- waste resources needed elsewhere
- are frustrated and poison everyone’s morale…
Too many teams like that make organisations that are #TooFatForWorkout. No power for improvement anymore.
This is not against the people involved! But when an organisation is too fat for workout, you need more than a team workshop. E.g. surgery. And that’s gonna hurt.
So, work out while you still can, everybody. Don’t fear the sweat, fear the wiggle moment.