Reversing the effects of bad workplace management

Dear Bob …

I read your posts regularly and appreciate your insights. Nevertheless, I get shocked by what our management teams are doing versus what seems to be simple common sense.

[ Bob Lewis offers a breakdown of different working environments in “Business as organism, mechanism, or ecosystem” | Get sage advice on IT careers and management from Bob Lewis in InfoWorld’s Advice Line newsletter. ]

My question: How would you fix an organization that has turned into an ecosystem?

Some facts: I am working in a large company that recently went all out on outsourcing and offshoring. Today, more than 70 percent of our software R&D is done in China and India. IMHO, our management team is clueless about software development. They’ve been experimenting with offshoring, at the same time they’ve tried to motivate us by forming highly competent/empowered teams. It also seems the demand from above is to keep on reducing costs (mostly costs per hour, not total cost).

Data seems to point toward a failure of this strategy, because every offshoring project — and, for that matter, every attempt to reduce costs by lowering the hourly rates — has led to worse results and mediocre ROI.

In other words, there has been:

1. A duality in the language coming from the management team, where they want highly efficient teams with strong software development skills, and at the same time saying these are too expensive and replaceable by teams located 5,000 miles away.
2. A failure to achieve results with offshored low-cost-per-hour teams, which were supposed to produce more, as well as be more scalable and as adaptive as their more expensive counterparts.
3. A cost explosion due to the number of managers needed to keep the cohesion/travel all around the world, a decrease in quality, and a marked increase in development times, as nothing is being coordinated anymore (basically, due to the ecosystem evolution, everyone is lying to preserve their power).
4. The software itself is now utterly broken, with four different versions of the same product being delivered at the same time to different customers where even the architecture is completely and fundamentally different.

In short: Chaos.

How would you approach that problem? What would be, in your opinion, the first steps to start addressing the situation?

– Siloed

Dear Siloed …

You don’t tell me where you fit into the organization. From your description, I infer you’re a staff member or manager relatively close to the action, not one of the decision makers who’s in a position to do something useful to fix this.

In any case, the short answer to your question of how I would fix an organization like this (presumably, if I were in your position): I wouldn’t even try. In your situation, my ability to influence the overall tone of the organization would be too limited for me to expend much effort trying to help my managers overcome the direction they’re determined to set.

I’d do my best to avoid making matters worse, and within my own sphere of action and influence, I’d do my best to encourage collaboration with those on the other sides of silo walls, but that’s about it — unless I decided to leave for a better environment. Otherwise I’d stick to my knitting while keeping my nose clean.

Anyway, trying to fix this would mean traversing too many management layers and overcoming too many commitments by managers and executives who stand to lose a great deal if they end up having to admit they were wrong.

If I was put in charge of the mess? That’s a different matter. As I said in my column on the subject, the keys are alignment and collaboration.

With respect to alignment, I’d take a hard look at how everyone in my organization is compensated, and in particular what sorts of behavior lead to the highest compensation. I’d adjust this so that a significant component of at-risk pay (read: bonuses) depends on all parties trusting each other, working together well, and keeping each other in the loop.

This isn’t a matter of bribing employees to do the right thing. It’s a matter of compensation being the organization’s loudest voice — the one that speaks the truth about what the company values. I’d want my loudest voice to broadcast my desire for everyone to be shooting at the same target.

Along with compensation, I’d look at the communications environment and make sure every possible tool is in place to reduce the impact of geographic separation. More than that, I’d ensure everyone receives so much training and support in the use of these tools that they become second nature, so they facilitate collaboration instead of serving as a distraction.

Collaboration: This is a matter of structuring projects and goals so that teamwork is required for success. If anyone has important goals that put them in competition with their peers, I’d ask to be told about this so that I could fix it — competing goals are one of the most pernicious sources of silo-style behavior.

That’s a start, at least. There’s a lot more, especially on the culture front. But to fix the culture, you have to fix leader behavior, and to fix leader behavior you have to build alignment and collaboration — if, of course, you’re in a position to do so.

– Bob

This story, “Reversing the effects of bad workplace management,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Bob Lewis’s Advice Line blog on InfoWorld.com.