Most group training, brainstorming and strategy sessions are a waste of money. Why? Too often they are ersatz, that is, a desperate attempt to compensate for what the company really lacks.
For example, a tangible budget is allocated annually for team building, but everyone turns a blind eye to the confusing organizational structure, favoritism and hidden shareholder conflict. Or the gathered brains are already boiling at the eleventh hour of searching for a breakthrough idea, but only because the company has again agreed to a vague and urgent client assignment in the spirit of “Guess It Yourself”. Or, say, once again all the top managers are gathered for a strategy session to identify new opportunities for business growth. But the shareholders never bother to describe their vision of what the business should be in 5-10 years.
When the wrong problem is attempted to be solved by over-zealous effort, then, while it looks epic in the moment, it always ends up worsening P&L. In other words, it’s always the shareholders who pay for this “entertainment”. And okay they would do it consciously — after all, the owner has the right to ruin his business. But no, the shareholders suffer sincerely, seeing that the desired increase in capitalization is absent. Everyone else — employees, customers, contractors, and investors — is also exhausted. Regular company fires also scorch them, forcing them to either become firefighters or go to the first-aid post.
If you’re a founder or CEO, before you succumb to the impulse to gather people into a group, ask yourself: “What problem am I really trying to solve?”.
Yours sincerely,
-Alexander
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