Horrid bureacracies with their rigid processes that cannot factor in common sense often have several workarounds, aka shortcuts.

Managers often allow breaking the rules (that they themselves are asked to enforce); furthermore people in the trenches do each other favours, especially in cultures where relationships are more valued that process. China, Israel, Holland and Taiwan  serve as  good examples.

Noam has been called to the campus at 2 AM to repair an extremely complex valve. He arrives at the campus without his security card, which is in his wife’s car! The gate does not open. He honks furiously. The guard who does not know Noam refuses to open the gate. But Noam knows the other guard sitting in the control room, because they have often had supper together when Noam does the night shift. Noam calls his friend in the control room who lets him in, against every single security policy.

Things like this happen every single day, greasing the idiocy that bureaucracy creates. But not when people work remote: I have not measured that, but I have worked extensively with organizations in which remote workers refuse to bend rules for people that they do not know, and wfh has created lots of opportunities to hide  common sense in a rule book and enhance buck-passing.

Any organization that wants to promote wfh, which is a very positive thing, need to promote “common sense” that stems from the power of relationships.

Both centralization and decentralization processes have their myths and misunderstandings.

In this short post, I shall share my experience in facilitating hundreds of such transitions.

• It is not either or. When you centralize certain components, others must be decentralized. And the opposite. Example: When you decentralize reimbursement policy, it is wise to centalize control. When you centalize travel policy, you need to decentralize discretion-based exceptions.
• Prolonged centralization does not lead to more control. Eventually, it can lead to lack of control. People will learn the weakness of the centralized system, and eventually beat it. 
• Decentralization and centralization are not ideologies. They are the pendulum of a clock that over time go back and forth, to compensate for the weakness that each state creates.
• Centralization and decentralization can co-exist for the same function. You can decentralize Purchasing in some geographies and centralize in others, depending on the amount of corruption.
• You cannot decentralize something that does not exist and hope that things get better. It is best to decentralize things that work well, and hope that they get better.

Tom White, OD Manager for a US based law firm, was sent to Asia to do some interviews for the corporate in Asia and solve burning issues “on line”. Tom was top of his class in OD in an Ivy League University and he was also a certified coach. He had undergone study groups in Tavistock and T Groups in the States.

One of the Brits in the Bangkok office told Tom that he had heard gossip from a secretary that Lawyer Jai (f) was very upset with her subordinate Lawyer Phrem (m); Phrem (who studied law in the US and France) had shown a lack of respect to Jai on their last trip to a client in Belgium. Phrem pushed Jai aside by speaking out when Jai was looking for words and used his knowledge of French to make Jai look bad. What made this worse was that Jai was the account manager on the deal, and Phrem was supposed to be a quiet #2.

Tom approached Jai and asked for another meeting, even though he had interviewed her in the morning. “Hey Jai, can you tell me a little bit about what happened in Belgium as week.” Jai smiled and said the trip was `wely sasexful“.

Well, said Tom, can you describe the dynamic with Phrem-he asked.

Jai evaded and Tom then told Jai what he had heard, emphasizing the lack of respect that Phrem had shown. Jai felt she wanted to throw up and felt dizzy…..so she smiled.

Tom said,“I want to give you some direct feedback, Jai. Managerial responsibility entails the ability to provide Phrem with feedback so he can improve his performance and learn from mistakes. It also makes no sense holding your anger inside: do you see things differently“ Jai smiled and said“-ok Khun Tom“

Tom told Jai he would organize a 3rd party intervention that afternoon and Jai smiled.

Tom asked Phrem at lunch how the trip to Belgium went and Phrem told Tom how important it was that he was invited: “Jai is such a good lawyer and I complemented her oral English“, said Phrem who wanted to make an impression on Tom, who was at time struggling to understand Jai.

Tom asked Phrem if he would be ready for a 3rd part intervention w Jai and Phrem agreed. `Great“said Phrem.

Tom sat Phrem and Jai down in a room. The goal of the meeting was to debrief the Belgium visit in a no penalty zone environment and establish some lessons learned which can be agreed to and possible shared. (Jai felt dizzy)

There may be some disagreements, said Tom, but we can meet in the middle. After all, isn’t that the most sensible thing to do. (Jai was seeing double)

Jai was asked to describe what happened at the client site. She said: “Thank you so much, K Tom. But we is lawyers and we hap (have) mek (made) a good contac.“

I agree, said Phrem. “What is this meeting about anyway, Tom“-said Phrem-stabbing Tom in the back, and smiling at Jai.

Tom gave a short lecturette on managerial maturity and open communication. Jai asked him how he was enjoying his first trip to Bangkok.

Jai sent VP HR Asia and Japan the following email.

Dear Khun HR Manager,

Maybe Mr Tom can focus on Japan office or Singapore office. He seems to suffer from heat. He get all confyus and maybe not feel so good.

Thank you we not see him again.

Jai

That night, Jai sent Tom to a restaurant in a cab which passed thru a 2 hour traffic jam. The restaurant was closed due to reconstruction.

No I have not changed my mind. There are no mergers, just acquisitions. But there is a limit on how many myths I try to bust without flushing myself down the drain. Mergers and acquisitions have never been easy; in the post corona era, they are harder than ever. I will list the three major challenges that I have experienced as well as what can be done, if anything, to mitigate the new challenges.

a) Any talent acquired in the acquired company may not be there in a few months. Yes, you can buy them perhaps physically, but committment is impossible to buy. So you better be very very sure that what you are buying is there to stay for as long as you expect.

b) Mergers and acquisitions are painful; long hours; lots of travel and lots a headaches. The level of pain people are willing to tolerate appears much lower than before corona. So whatever time frame is expected for the merger/acquisition to work, I suggest quadrupling it.

c) Generally there is a process of the unification of shared services, such as supply chain/ purchasing, travel coordination, finance, HR, IT etc. I would think ten times about merging supply chain. The supply chain is disrupted enough externally without self created disruption.

d) Building trust by Zoom is absurd. There is an illusion that lots of work can be done virtually, including trust building. Post merger trust cannot be built easily at all-and certainly not remotely. So no short cuts-don’t shower with a raincoat. 

I know, I know. If I were not 72 going on 73, I would recommend that someone who is shopping for an OD consultant ensure that the potential candidates are equally female, male and bi-sexual. And perhaps a candidate who thinks that Zelensky is the new Churchill. However…

Since I come from a different generation, I want to suggest some questions and issues you clarify when choosing a potential OD consultant.

• Does your candidate have domain experience relevant to your firm? If you run an insurance agency, an OD consultant with 30 years’ experience in petroleum will not be effective. Domain experience is critical in the present level of complexity and competitiveness. Don’t anyone tell you otherwise.
• Do you like the candidate? As India-based guru Joseph George points out in his comments to this post, this “liking” can lead to a slippery slope given the parallel requirement of choosing a no nonsense consultant, which is also discussed below. Furthermore, I say this even though I personally am an acquired taste. However, if there is not enough initial personal chemistry, my advice is to think twice. So much of the OD dialogue is based on trust that working against your own intuition is not worth the risk. Let me give an example. If I were to meet a consultant who was late for a meeting and did not apologize, corrected my use of traditional gender pronouns, and used sloppy grammar, I would cut the conversation short. 
• If your candidate wants to conduct remote interviews or Zoom sessions even some of the time, forget it. Face to face interactions with an OD consultant are as important as are face to face interactions with a dentist.  
• Is your candidate willing to clearly define goals and eventual results in the initial meetings beyond the basic generic nature of the OD process (which must be made clear up front)? If so, don’t hire because it cannot be done. Project goals emerge slowly over time and shift /sway.
• Does the candidate appear to be a pleaser? If so, be careful-because OD people must challenge & authority. They should not be compliant or pleasers. 
• If your staff is ethnically or internationally diverse, if your candidate culturally fluent? Or is he or she   a captive of the culture into which he was born? Give this quiz when in doubt. 

Sherman’s mother would always offer us cookies and hot chocolate when we were playing hockey on the street or throwing snowballs at each other. His dad drove a Pontiac and worked nearby at the Toronto Dominion Bank. I heard that Sherman had disappeared into a Hassidic community, although when I knew him he was fully assimilated Canadian with even less attachment to religion than me.  So what ever happened to Sherman?

A decade ago, a firm hired me to work in Toronto. Monthly for about 18 months, I took that very long Tel Aviv-Toronto flight, and stayed the weekend before returning home. I learnt that Shari, like so many other Montrealers, had moved to Toronto. Shari was born in New York and had moved to Montreal as a kid-but she still saw herself as American. Pleasant, happy with a great sense of humour, I looked forward to reconnecting. I called her one Saturday afternoon and she told me that “I have erased Montreal from my life; don’t call me again”. She hung up. What ever happened to Shari?

I really, really liked Gary’s mother. She also was a New Yorker, who had married a Montreal boy, Gary’s Dad. Gary’s mother was warm, loving, kind and very good to me. Gary was a very close friend. He was good in PE (I was not) and I was good in languages and history. Naturally, we helped each other. My very first date was with Gary’s cousin Judy when she was up in Montreal on a visit. Judy’s dad (Gary’s mother’s brother) was a cab driver in NYC! Judy sent me love letters signed “love, Judy”. I was too shy to kiss her on our first date. How silly of me-but I was only 15. Gary  disappeared off the map. I have looked for him everywhere. Where are you, Gary? What the hell happened to you?

Capone (Stephen) was my classmate and his sister Diane was in my sister’s class. His father was Montreal born and his mom was born in Alabama and had a very strong accent. Steven dressed very well and often, I asked my Dad to get me “the same thing that Stephen is wearing”. Capone was what people today would call “cool”, but perhaps “cool” no longer means anything. After all, I am 73 years old on Nov 4. One summer, I learnt that Capone and I were to be going to the same summer camp. I was worried because Capone was popular at that camp, and I was new. Luckily, I was also popular, and Capone and I got on really well. Capone’s sister drowned in a horrible accident. I lost all contact with him, and all my searches have found nothing about his whereabouts. Capone, where the fu-k are you?

In 1969, I returned to Israel where my paternal family have been living since 1917. I did not lose all my friends. Sam, George, Arlene, Norman, Sue; we are all still in contact. I even spoke to Millie a few years ago.

But for heaven sakes-Sherman, Gary, Shari, Capone-where are you?

The treatment for depression used to be dipping the afflicted in ice water. Not that it helped very much; albeit in its time, it was a state of the art treatment.

In the Roman empire, piles were treated with onions. Of course that treatment became obsolete, even before Preparation H became available.

Hernia holders (someone to hold your hernia inside) were common; they too became obsolete with hernia belts. All treatments of cataracts (which I will not go into) caused blindness, but they were used for many years. But no longer.

Organizations are presently suffering from a lack of loyalty, resulting in high levels of turn-over. The turn over is not as high as some alarmists make it up to be (in order to make money), but it is still high. Furthermore, it has become very difficult to recruit new people.

Yet the ‘treatments’ being used are reminiscent of the onions, ice, hernia holders and hot coals on the cataract-way out of step with what the clients need.

Engagement plans, a fun environment, unlimited vacations and wow-wowism are not an appropriate elixir for the present turbulence in the job market.

The possible solutions may stem from a new way of looking at the crisis.

Here are 3 examples, all real.

Syd’s Steak House in had a 90% monthly turnover of stewards(dishwashers). As a result, all 7 branches were operating at 30% capacity. Syd’s now uses paper plates and plastic cutlery.

Alfredo’s Industrial Laundry in Afula Israel had 29 of it 50 staff resign after covid. Every morning at 7 AM, a bus now crosses the international border at Bein Sean bussing in 30 Pakistani workers from Jordan, who are now exempt for all border checks as long as they carry their magnetic cards.

It takes 5 years to become an expert program manager this cyber security plant. Experts have good relationships with the defense ministry and 4 key clients, as well as background in telecommunications , programming and system integration. 4 of 10 program managers quit since covid with devastating results. After failed exit interviews did not teach the organization anything useful, a structural change was put in place. Relationship management has now been separated from the role of Program Manager. Each relationship manager now has a second driver.

The response to the present crisis needs to be structural and strategic.

Stop using onions and ice.

You cannot make much sense of this post if you do not know what an opium den was. Put in today’s terms, it was a recreational establishment where people smoked opium, the most addictive of drugs at that time that  few professionals warned of its dangers. The opium dens devastated China’s population. 

Recently I myself have noticed dens all around me. Mobile phone dens; not opium dens. It does not matter where I am: on trains; in meetings; in the restaurant; in the movie theatre; in concerts; in lectures. Everywhere. There is a sickening stench of addiction.

Amir was reviewing the soaring prices that vendors were now quoting,some justified but many unjustified. The cost of doing business was threatening their profitability existentially. As Amir spoke, Bob was texting his wife. Sima was texting her new girlfriend. Fatima was watching a new you-tuber from Lebanon; Shuki was reading the news. Freddy had turned his phone face down but kept checking it. Yisrael had to leave the room because his son called him from the pool that he had a stomach ache. Tina left the room because her daughter had nausea. Ilan learnt that his new car would be available in two weeks.

The level of discussion after Amir spoke was as shallow as piss on a plater. I was asked by Amir what I had noticed during the meeting, and I said that “people were fucking around on their phones and not listening”.

Amir told me “not to be too old-fashioned”. Sima told me not to be vulgar, and mentioned that I always spoke in the masculine form, which is “correct Hebrew but not politically correct Hebrew”. Fatima was still watching the You Tuber.

The week after I addressed this team about opium dens-with slides and with pictures.They listened and decided to leave their phones outside the room.

And no, it is not the way to do business. It is not that I am old fashioned. It is a severe addiction, with lots of money driving the loss of cognitive and emotional abilties downhill into a pit of disrepair. 

In 1998, DWD came out with a product that conquered the market. Almost every police department, internal security ministry, and sleuth agency was quick to purchase the product as well as  pay the large monthly service fee. In 1998, DWD’s product division had 20 engineers and by 2014, they had 8977, scattered in 6 development sites!

DWD knew that their account management division was weak in Russia, Germany, Australia/NZ and Japan. They had lost HUGE key clients in all four areas, which tarnished  their reputation, albeit not severely. CEO Arthur Laurier told me in 2001: “I want you to focus all your attention on the quality of account management. It’s the most frail part of DWD”.

HR manager Nicole Abd and I worked together to recruit the very best acccount managers we would find. Nicole would recruit them, and I would ensure that they learned to work well with the back office, which was Israeli, French and Dutch. Even when all was going well,the CEO grilled Nicole and me monthly about “what’s going wrong with the key account managers?” Until the bitter end, DWD retained the best of its account managers.

In the meantime, the product division, convinced that their product was “built to last”, recruited hundreds of mediocre engineers to keep their product afloat. Feedback from the field that their product was getting clumsy and too “stand-alone-ish” was ignored. In 2017, in a massive AI-based paradigm shift, DWD lost 60% of their clientelle to a new suite of products developed in Taiwan. The senior engineers in the product division bolted and the next generation of managers were B grade at most. By 2022, DWD’s products were uninstalled everywhere except for Cuba, RSA and Romania.

The perception of what was “frail” and what a major pillar of success had focused all the attention on the wrong place. What is strong today is weak tomorrow, and if you work on your weakness with vigour, they won’t remain your weaknesses for long.

So always question what issues your client asks you to ignore.

Nadia, a corporate lawyer, comes to work overdressed, as do many of her Russian-born colleages. Even the blazing heat of the summer, Nadia is “putting on the ritz”. She is not “shchuna”, because she is not from the shchuna, even if she is.

Shchuna can mean neighbourhood, but more often refers to the long blocks of two to four storey long blocks of housing with several entrances, often with no elevator, small apartments and functional mailboxes yet in a poor state of repair.

When Nadia’s parents came to Israel, she  lived in a shchuna (‘D’ in Beer Sheva) , but she is not shchuna. Not one bit. She has a very strong Russian accent, & perfect Hebrew grammar. She speaks to her kids in Russian, and they answer in Hebrew.

Rafi calls me “bro”. He is 27; I am 72. Rafi mixes up (almost purposely) masculine and feminine pronouns and numbers, although he is very, very well educated; his Hebrew is sloppy, masking his intelligence. He is almost uncomfortable in his milieu as a senior programmer in the cyber start-up where he works. Most of the  people  he worked with served in a elite group but Rafi served in the infantry. He has two visible tatoes. He wears two rings. All his peers admire him, “although he is a bit shchuna”. His mother was born in Romania, survived the camps; his father fled Algeria.

Sima works in Finance as an economist is the revenue-projection team. She uses the term “metuka sheli” (loosely translated as “sugar”) when speaking to her females colleages. Or “hamudi” (loosely translated as Cutey) when speaking to males. Her dressing is not provocative, but is certainly not conservative. The best way to describe her atire is loud. She befriends almost everyone, except her bosses towards whom she shows respect and hidden contempt. She could be promoted if she tried but ‘being in management is not in my league’. Sima comes from Dimona, a desert town. Her parents’  are both Dimona born and all 4 grandparents came different places: Morocco, Tunis, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Sima describes herself as shchuna, and is proud of it. But she isn’t. 

Hava was born in Israel and returned here at the age 15 after her parents returned from teaching at Columbia. She retains a slight American accent, especially with the letters R and L. She is a political activist in her spare time, deeply involved in trying to improve civil rights of illegal immigrants to Tel Aviv. She has a PhD in Philosophy. She does not have a pot to piss in, although she has a well paying job in City Hall. She wears jeans and a T shirt to work every day. She sprinkles her Hebrew with English and often gets confused between masculine and feminine grammar use. There is nothing shchuna about Hava. But Hava would be so glad to be seen as a bit ‘shchuna’. It would make her feel at home.

Got it?