Dynamics and biases affecting your business in a bad way
When your mindset is the cause of your own failure.
Dear friends, I know you are far from investing more energy in working activity, but summertime gave me this insight, so here I am sharing this with you.
Since my vacation time is near, my mind goes to the homeland of my grandparents in Italy: the Sicilian countryside.
My grandma's dad was a wealthy landowner in a strongly agricultural and sparsely populated place.
A few years ago, we visited where my grandma's house used to be, and (in her words) it was a very emotional experience for us, sad for her, and one that we will never repeat.
Picture by my sister Silvia Clo Di Gregorio.
Where my grandmother's family farm used to be, there is now scrubland. It is the story of a business destroyed by systemic bias. My great-grandfather ran his business into the ground rather than leave it to one of his daughters because of patriarchal culture.
Today, I hope it's hard to believe.
Even if we still have a pay gap problem, too few female leaders, and a lack of subsidies for the domestic female workforce in Italy, the failure to save a business by not entrusting it to a woman seems (I hope) an absurdity and a big mistake.
Male chauvinism in the mid-twentieth century in Italy was not questioned (only for a short while waiting for the law on abortion and divorce a few years later) because it's hard to question cultural biases, and it takes time.
What about the less-known biases of today?
Do you think some dynamics and biases hinder growth and the achievement of economic and value objectives? Of course, there are.
Even today, corporate dynamics can go against collective and economic interests.
Let us look at some biases (pre-packaged mental schemes in our heads) and dynamics (dialogue flows and power management) that can hold back or destroy your business and your company. Some will be familiar to you, others less so.
1- Personalism
Individuals claim an outcome leads to relational friction mechanisms, from lack of cooperation to outright sabotage.
Missed opportunities for collaboration and development of new synergies can't be only suggested, but incentivized by the reward system.
In a system where collaboration is only told but not rewarded, motivation for synergy will be disincentivized. If, at the end of the year, those making decisions about rewards will look for authorship in an individual, then inevitable internal competition and gatekeeping will be incentivized.
2- Cultural homogeneity
A sign can be that all the people in higher positions are identical.
The presence of a dominant culture may be unavoidable in many contexts. This does not mean that the company should reward only certain aspects and goals of work. A company that is strongly sales-oriented will reward salespeople, but it must be very careful to reward technicians and product developers as well, otherwise, you will not have a good internal balance and it will be difficult with company benefits alone to keep talent.
Promoting diversity in the company also means providing alternative careers from those of the dominant culture and an incentive system that benefits all aspects of the company ecosystem, from product quality to talent development, from customer dialogue to sales.
3- Managerialism
The belief is that only the presence of a manager can solve problems.
If the objective is clear and resources are sufficient, a solid team of skilled people can solve problems and make decisions.
Managers shouldn't make every little step and every decision for their team. Instead, they must understand the situation, communicate a clear objective, and provide the team with the correct resources and time without wasting time or making the team suffer.
Managers don’t disappear, the dialogue is continuous, but they certainly don’t get into the merits of every little decision by taking away space from their own and burdening them with stress or by depriving them at the outset of one of the most essential skills in the world of work: task and contingency management.