I’m seeing a worrying trend at some large organizations. And it’s not just confined to traditional organizations, but seems widespread at large consulting houses too and other service businesses. What is it? Lack of people… Sound crazy? Maybe I am – but it seems like everyday I’m talking to clients and leaders at large organizations who have a culture or change problem, or just a plain ‘shorthanded’ problem. Why – because the people who ‘survived’ the downsizing and cost cutting over the last few years, may not be the people who want to grow and change the organization.

Its one of those Pavlovian things – you incent certain behaviors and those are the behaviors that are going to stick, and it takes a lot of reprogramming to make new incentives work. Afterall we’re talking about human beings here, not rats in a maze… So let’s see – there were bubble times, where the ‘creative’ and up and coming types were perhaps involved in more risk taking things like incubators, venture units and intrapreneurship. Pop went the bubble, and the first to go were the loss making wild ideas 🙂 Now, I’m not saying that was all bad, because the bubble did encourage a lot of ‘dumb money’ to enter the game, and many companies did do stupid things destroying any potential margins in new business areas. But it had the effect of tainting the people who worked in these areas and I’m sure they were the first to go. So who’s left after those who were close to retirement, voluntarily or involuntarily, departed? The people who don’t like to take risks, who embody the traditions of the company, and kept their heads down during the cost cutting. Now, most organizations incented these behaviors during cost cutting, and now suddenly enterprises are waking up to the fact that employees have retrenched and are probably feeling highly over worked and under valued. So let’s pull the rug from out under these people, and try to change the culture, threaten them with offshoring and the need to grow… I hate to think of the consequences…

If as a leader in an organization, there is one message you should know and take to heart about leadership, it’s that a big part of your job in good times and bad times is around managing talent (including yourself ;)). One of the first processes that get broken during reorganizations is the talent management process – and yes, I realize it’s really hard to think about the future and encourage junior people to develop when you’re dealing with which colleagues who’ve been with you for decades, need to walk. But if you don’t – you’re putting the organization into a potential death spiral, or at the very least, making it easier to acquire… And the same thing is happening at large consulting houses, so don’t expect to be able to backfill from there either.