You have a great product or service idea. You hire the best people to make it happen. Everything seems to be moving along according to plan and then….boom! It blows up in your face. How could everything fall apart, seemingly overnight? The truth is that it has been falling apart for a long time; you just missed the signs. But don’t give up! This is the perfect opportunity to tune your awareness and be ready to address potential issues in advance the next time. Here are some common warning signs that your operations may be headed for (or already in) crisis:
Internal development milestones are always “on target,” yet you never see working output.
Engineers are proud of their creations and will be the first to pull you into their office or the test lab to show you the latest working pieces. Maybe some of them are ultra-introverted so you have to ask for a demonstration, but if you are consistently “put off” regarding tangible results while being reassured on everything intangible, you have a problem on your hands. It is time to re-prioritize your schedule, roll up your sleeves and dive into the technical and operational details. If you don’t have the Engineering background to do this, then find someone you trust who does. It is the only way you will really know what is going on so you can correct the problem.
Key people seem to be missing.
They are late to work, take long lunches, miss meetings, or claim to be working late into the evening when no one else is at the office. They cannot be reached on their cell phones or they don’t have one. They always have a good excuse for not being at work (e.g., worked all night, doctor’s appointment, sick, family emergency, car broke down) and the excuses are so frequent that it has become a source of humor in the office. Wake up! These people are not working. They do not like (or don’t know how to do) their job. But they do enjoy the paycheck. As long as you continue to reward them with inaction, they will continue to disappoint you. In addition, everyone else in your office who is working hard will begin to resent you and them.
Problems are not brought to your attention because they do not fall into any particular person’s “job responsibility.”
This attitude will kill a project quicker than just about anything else because it means you have an environment lacking in teamwork, responsibility, accountability, problem-solving, and focus on results. When your staff is more concerned about the strict boundaries of their job than they are about working together to ensure operations are efficient, productive, and culminating in a superior product, your chances of success are slim to none. Be sure to clearly communicate your expectations on a regular basis and start investing more time in your staff. Find out what their personal goals are and how those goals fit in with what you are trying to accomplish at the company. Although your duty is to ensure business goals are met, this will only happen if your staff wants it to happen as well.
Rampant finger-pointing.
Every single time I have been given the opportunity to turn around a crisis situation, the first thing I have to address is finger-pointing. When things are going down the toilet, people get panicky and start engaging in what I call “survival of the fittest” tactics. Others fondly label it CYA. In order to re-direct this behavior, you must get your staff to focus on a desired future and find creative ways to get there, rather than expending energy looking backward to find scapegoats for sacrifice. This means you, as a manger, must also focus on results rather than punishment. Unless someone is being malicious or is downright incompetent, mistakes should be embraced as learning opportunities.
You start hearing frequent gossip and complaints.
In general, people do not want to be labeled a trouble-maker or snitch by their boss, so if the frequency with which you get wind of gossip and complaints is on the rise, chances are high that negativity is already spreading like wildfire throughout your organization. In most cases, this negativity is started by one or two people poisoning your organization, so if you address it right away you can turn around the environment quickly. However, if you let it fester and grow, key people will walk out and the entire operation could fall apart.
One or more productive staff members resigns without warning.
You may not realize it, but your best Engineers do get calls from headhunters and other people trying to steal them away from you. It is relatively easy for an Engineer to get a new job making more money. However, an Engineer who enjoys her work, her boss, and the people she works with will not leave. If you are surprised to lose someone you value, try to find out why because others may soon follow.