My last blog post described those amazing
creations I call “zombie companies.” Today's blog focuses on how to destroy zombie company mentality.
You can read my latest Forbes blog post here, and I've also included below some policies and techniques to keep your company from being labeled a "zombie."
Compensate for company
pride
1. Create
internal advocates for strategies and technologies introduced by competitors
and by other outside firms that are tackling analogous tasks.
2. Give
someone the job of monitoring competitor’s missteps and making sure that they’re
avoided.
3. Use
partnering to bring in new ideas and new practices.
Compensate for the
company’s vision of excellence
1. Make
sure that the improvements the company most wants to provide are the ones the
customers most want to have.
2. Make
each top executive personally responsible for dealing with important customers.
Compensate for the
company’s positive attitude
1. Reward
employees who can find flaws or potential problems in the company’s procedures.
2. Make
heroes of the “Paul Reveres” who ride through the company warning that “the
British are coming.” (As long as they’re not really “Chicken Littles”
announcing that the sky is falling).
Compensate for company
perfectionism
1. Get
senior managers to set the example when it comes to acknowledging and learning
from failures.
2. Use
external benchmarks, especially for routine operations and centralized support
services.
3. Use
devices such as “Mistake of the Month” to reward experiments that are
unsuccessful when it comes to producing financial returns but highly successful
when it comes to producing knowledge returns.
Compensate for team
spirit
1. Request
minority reports and reports that aim at presenting the strongest contrasting
position.
2. Create
cross-functional teams and diverse work groups whose members will see things
differently.
3. Seek
critical evaluations from genuine outsiders.
