Corporate Attention Deficit Disorder

[Michael Kanazawa]

Are you seeing a trend in what may be best described as "Corporate A.D.D."? This looks like constantly resetting direction, not staying with anything long enough to see it through, not setting priorities, running everything as a fire drill, and simply doing too much at one time. This operating mode makes people feel overwhelmed, out of control, marginalized, and ineffective. The result, employees disengage.

Are you seeing this issue in your work as well? Maybe in your own life?

[Jay Cross]

Michael,

I'd prefer working in the Ford/Adams/da Vinci Group to a company with this cast at the helm:

Day 1: Jimmy Dimon
Day 2: Sam Palisano
Day 3: Michael Eisner
Day 4: Jeff Imelt
Day 5: Edgar Bronfman, Jr.
Day 6: Ricahrd Wagoner
Day 7: Jack Welch
Day 8: John Chambers
Day 9: Barry Diller
Day 10: William Lauder

or any of their pals.

We agree at the base level: people today are scurrying around with short-term vision and stop-gap action that adds up to zilch in the long run. The folks on the ADD list have vision. Oh, I know, and other baggage besides.

One place to be cautious is using ADD as a cutesy metaphor. In conversation yesterday, a fellow told me about his ADD daughter. Her grades had gone from FFFFD to AAAAB. He described taking her to all manner of tutorials and special classes and ABC camps, to no avail. Then they came upon a therapy that worked.

So far, so good. Then he told me he thought his daughter had been playing with his parents' minds, seeing how far they would go to help their daughter. In other words, he though of ADD as a voluntary condition. Jesus. While there are always a few fakers, most ADD people have a chemical imbalance in the brain that makes them develop at different rates from the norm. Not bad, not good, not funny, just different. So what if Einstein didn't talk his first few years and could never get the hang of arithmetic. You may need math to grok physics; he did not.

My crap detectors go up when I see what some regard as a disability dragged into other areas. I may be oversensitive on this because a schizophrenic gave me some well-deserved grief a few years ago when I was making light of split personalities. I didn't think of it at the time; it stomped her toes hard enough to ruin a few of her days.

End of sermon. Let's carry on.

jay

[Michael Kanazawa]

Jay - If you believe in what Jim Collins found in Good to Great, we'd all be better off working for a list of people that none of us likley know by name at all. Those are the grounded leaders whose comapnies we would know, but not their personal names. And it's a good point to be careful about analogies that are also personal and applying those to business situations.

Thanks for adding to the discussion. I'm glad you jumped right in.

Mike

[Melina]

Hello Michael,

A little late on the reply, but the issue is still relevant. I see this all the time. In both the work I do and the companies of those around me. What I notice most is leadership deciding on a new direction at a high level with no thought into how it impacts the rest of the company. Resources are re-routed and projects are put on hold without much information or planning. I have seen this especially with VC funded companies whose sole purpose is to be sold for profit. Direction changes constantly with the hope of a higher selling price (following market trends) and the employees are left confused, frustrated and insignificant.

-Melina

[Michael Kanazawa]

Melina - Thanks for pointing this out. Sometimes it seems like lack of focus only happens at big corporations, but it just as easily can happen at start-ups as well.

Mike

[Lisa Forsyth]

I just stumbled across this discussion and thought I would share an experience of my own that relates to the issue Jay raises:

I was sitting in an all-hands company meeting, just three weeks after I had come aboard, and was captivated by the presentation one of the executives was giving on how his department operated—he was a very dynamic and energetic speaker, and I found his presentation both humorous and engaging. Then he equated his team’s operating style to that of the ADD problem child. He qualified this, of course, by saying they needed to embrace the distractibility of the ADD problem child, while maintaining the focus needed to get things done. He intended this to be a positive analogy versus a negative one, but what he didn’t know, and couldn’t have known at the time, is that I was sitting in the audience after having been diagnosed with ADD just three weeks ago—the day before I started the job—and I was struggling to come to terms with it. At the time, I was ashamed of it, and thought if my ADD was discovered, everyone would question my ability and I would be revealed as an imposter. After hearing the subject of the ADD Problem Child come up, and the laughter that ensued, I disengaged and withdrew into my bad brain, where my feelings that I did not belong were continuously validated.

If I were to hear the same presentation again, I think my response would be much different, as I am more comfortable with my condition. On a good day, I can embrace it as what makes me remarkable. But there are still bad brain days where insecurity abounds, days where I feel similar to how I felt during this meeting, days where hearing ADD laughed at in the workplace, even when meant as a “cutesy metaphor” (to coin the phrase Jay used), are more likely to result in disengagement than others.

For more on my bad brain: http://ravenyoung.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!17376F4C11A91E0E!4037.entry

[Michael Kanazawa]

Lisa,

Thank you for your addition to this conversation and heads-up on how the use of analogies can have the unintended consequence of hurting others. In studying organziational issues there are often strong parallels to indiviudal issues as well. To me the analogies can help us to understand and explore solutions more than just provide a "cutesy metaphor." I hope we can continue to use analogies to communicate about and study critical issues without causing the use of these to become a laughing matter that hurts individuals. I'll make sure to use care in this and other areas. I appreciate you sharing this here.

Best,

Mike

[Steve Roesler]

Michael, this very well may be the issue.

1. It's confusing when organizations rightfully spend big blocks of time creating and revising long-term strategy; and are then pounded in the media by Wall Street analysts demanding better quarterly returns. (Please note that those same analysts may have joyfully and publicly supported the wisdom of the long-term strategy. But that was last quarter).

2. Short-term pressures prompt short-term solutions, which can create longer-term problems.

3. The same short-term pressures and the worship of "fast" has seemingly created a tendency to go with the "program or author du jour." Developmental programs begin based on one set of premises only to be scrapped by one by an author on the latest NY Times best seller list. None may actually be based in sound truth; all get good buzz.

I think I have more but the short-term demands of my practice are calling. . .

Good topic, Michael.