Natalie believes that transparency is foolishness; it betrays human weakness and weak people get screwed. So she always keeps her cards close to her chest. She is seen as non cooperative and “needs some training in communication skills”.

Nir believes that all systems are corrupt and or inefficient, and the only way to be effective is to bypass the system. Nir is labelled a cowboy who needs to be coached on being a game player.

Ngai is certain that emotions need to be hidden at work, especially if there is a conflict. The best way to deal with a conflict is to wait until it goes away, or ignore it so that it does’t get worse. Ngai keeps all her emotions to herself and she has been given feedback on her introversion in team meetings. She was told to “better advocate” her departments agenda.

Anil  believes that his boss should be consulted on any deviation however minor from procedures  otherwise he is showing disrespect. Thus, he often says to his peers that “I need to consult my boss”. Anil is seen as a shirker.

My claim is that OD does not accept or respect any of these deeply cultural-related behaviours since OD efforts will always focus on changing these behaviours. We all agree that conversion therapies for homosexuality are both evil and nonsensical. But there is no agreement that OD’s non acceptance of cultural differences is any better. So yes, OD is the very first not to show respect to more than half of the world population.

Truth has many adversaries. W Somerset Maugham’s classic The Moon and Sixpence tells of Charles Strickland, for whom beauty is more important than any other human value, truth and integrity included. Thus, the shock value of the novel, both then and now.

Of course nowadays, fake news is the number one public enemy of the truth. Yet fake news is but one of many. 

Yet truth has another adversary: the preference of harmony in social relations; this presents a huge challenge for fast moving organizations which need to transmit accurate information quickly to get the job done and remain one step ahead of the competitors.

Let’s meet Eddie Yu. Eddie believes that social harmony is more important that telling the “so-called” truth, because harmony is Truth, for Eddie.

Eddie is VP of Asia based in Taiwan. He  thinks that Sandra, his peer and young US-based  VP of Strategy should not meet with a certain Mr Ocampo on Sandra’s next tour of Asia Pac. Ocampo serves as a potential clients’ Manila-based CEO, who known is to be very conservative. Eddie firmly believes that much more harm than good  will come from such a meeting.

Yet Sandra asked her  CEO (Stan) to meet with Ocampo, and Stan told Eddie to set up the meeting.

When asked by Sandra what messages she should emphasize when she meets with Ocampo, Eddie stated that “your message should be low tone and understated, because of the complex nature of such meetings”. Sandra thanked Eddie for his input and promised to “send you my PPT slide pack for your further comments.”  Eddie reviewed Sandra’s ppt; he was shocked and said nothing.

Eddie is not “afraid “to tell Sandra or Stan the truth. But Eddie thinks that there is no value in doing so. Quite the opposite; Eddie believes that telling Sandra or Stan “the truth”  will destroy harmony and upset the smooth chain of command, which is far more mission critical than any bothersome fact. 

Sandra met with the client in a short and tense meeting, during which the 69 year old Ocampo felt very uncomfortable with 31 year old Sandra. Ocampo also made sure that young Ms Sandra waited one hour and 45 minutes in the waiting room.

Eddie is ok with this. He thinks he has been a good corporate citizen. No harm done; Sandra will go home and Eddie will nurture the dialogue with Ocampo over the next few years until he gets a deal.

Sandra told Stan that “Eddie screwed things up, because he thought I was treading into his territory”.

Next month, Eddie to going to a course on Authentic Communication, which has been commissioned by VP HR Gloria Ramsbottom, to enable better alignment between corporate and field organizations.

Ethan, the common  boss of Mark (USA) and Eddie (Taiwan), asked me to work with these two highly talented yet chronically uncooperative executives on “better aligning” themselves to get things done without bogging Ethan down.

Mark (Corporate Strategic Account Management) told me that Eddie (Taiwan Sales CEO) refused to enter account information into the SCDB, the sales control data base. Mark emphasized that data entry is not “elective”, and Eddie is in breach of discipline. Eddie, according to Mark, does not follow process- how can I trust that he is not withholding information and other forms of local monkey business”? To Mark’s credit, the SCDB has been extremely useful all over the world, except in South East Asia, China, Russia and Taiwan.

Eddie claims that Mark is hounding him and :”throwing a book of rules at me”, rules with do not make sense because of the manner that deals are done in Taiwan. Eddie told me that he will not waste his time on secretarial duties of data entry, “but if Mark trusts me, he will know everything he needs to know, and more”.

Eddie and Mark have both been coached before, and the coach gave them 3 rules* to follow- which they did not, although they claim they did.

After speaking with Eddie and Mark, I referred back to Ethan who had a hard decision to make-does he want to sell in Taiwan or not? Because if he does, corporate process, not individual behaviour, needs to change.

Ethan dropped the mandated use of the SCDB, Mark received guidance from me on effectively managing Eddie while Eddie consulted with me on what to tell, and not tell, Mark. I back channelled all this information to Ethan, who made all the decisions, using me as a channel.

Project concluded a month ago. Sales in Taiwan flourishing. Mark was moved out of his role, which was split in half, with a dedicated Asia executive being appointed.

*3 rules

No surprises. No backstabbing. Consult one another before making decisions.

I followed the Israeli elections on local media as well as on foreign media. Many reports expressed dismay about the tactics used in the last few days of the campaign during which many parties called out to their supporters: “vote for us, we are losing”. This type of campaign is called “Gevalt”, and implies impending doom. The use of this tactic shocked foreign media.

This blog of mine is not abut politics, yet the lessons to be learnt from the use of the Gevalt tactic merit a short focus on  its underpinnings , since Gevalt is so applicable in organizational life.

A “gevalt” campaign rests on two pillars-fear and compassion.

Fear

Fear of impending doom serves as a massive motivating factor in Israel, internally and externally. If “they” win, “we are finished”. Israeli society is post traumatic, both from the holocaust, the periodic wars and the constant threat of terror. What separates us from them is very often a myth, but fear is real and fear ignites, augments and enhances the survival instinct. The post traumatic symptom which is most common is the survival instinct, which serves as a magic trigger for action.

So if you manage a project in Israel, a statement like, “if we fail, HQ will close us down” is much more effective than a detailed plan on how to succeed. Or, if a product fails on first try, the panic mode of 24/7 will be more effective than a detailed fix-it process which may take longer yet solve the root cause of the problem.

Compassion

When an Israeli politician admits that he may be losing, what he (or she) may be saying is that “I am like your father; I make mistakes but I care for you. Show me compassion when the going gets rough, because I busted my ass to bring you up/take care of your interests.

So if you manage a Israeli team, an appeal for help is far more effective than promising a bonus or a weekend in an resort in Cyprus or Greece. “We take care of each other” works far better than using a formal system such as compensation to harness people in tough times. Btw, when push comes to shove, Israeli organizations do not generally fire people at the drop of a hat, unless the downsizing comes from a global company which needs to chop a given number of heads from each geographical site.

Summary

Using a survival motive and appealing for compassion are great motivators in Israel. There is no such thing as an overdose of either. Our society is post traumatic and emotionally high strung.

Meetings in Israel have many unique characteristics: loose agendas, going out on a tangent most of time, argument, reopening of decisions, debating for debating sake and yes-but-ism.

There is yet but another challenge (for the non Israeli) in our meetings, and that is the frequent coming and going in/out of the meeting room.

The latter is the subject of this post.

Today, I stood outside the Lord Balfour Room and asked those coming in/going out of the room what their story was. The meeting in Balfour was scheduled to start at 1000 AM. It started at 1017.

At 10.22, Alisa and Fatima came into the room. They were both on the same train that ran late; both mentioned that the air-conditioning on the train was malfunctioning and thus, they had stopped  to get a bottle of water with ice before entering the room. The ladies asked me to carry in the ice bucket.

At 10.27, Maor left the meeting room, because his son had called him to ask if he could have the car in the afternoon, and if so at what time. “And Dad, by the way…” Maor went back in at 1040.

Sivan left the room at 10.42 to take a call from her Dad’s doctor,  for which she had been waiting for  3 weeks.

Miki, Simon and Iggie had a double booked meeting and arrived at 1045.

CFO Riki left the room 3 times: once to speak to a supplier who had not been paid; once to field a call from a board member and once to smoke.

The meeting which was supposed to end at 1130 ended at 12.30, so lunch was ordered in and the discussion went on for another hour, even though a third of the people invited had left.

Why does this happen?

1 Personal issues can be dealt with on company time.

2 Immediate responsiveness is more valued than keeping to the plan.

3 People multi task all the time as a way of life and if there is a gap, they retro fix it.

4 Keeping to plan/schedule has some espoused importance but other things are “equally important” and everyone  must  decide his/her  priorities. Besides that, shit happens.

5 Some of the decisions that were made in the meeting can be revisited by people who were not in the meeting when the decisions were made, so  lack of discipline is complemented by lack of consequence-all of which is compensated by deep commitment and willingness to do everything to get the job done! 🙂

Is this chaos? Yes for the outsider; No for the local. Why? That’s another post. 

Barry has just raised 15 million dollars from investors by promising  to deliver a product within 2 years that will detect pain in canine and feline pets in order to advise the owner whether or not a trip to the vet is necessary.

Barry knows that 2 years and 15 million dollars are not enough. More likely, he will need eight years and  triple the amount of money. It may even be necessary to purchase another company which specializes in canine ophthalmology at a hefty price.  Only Barry knows this.

As CEO, Barry will provide unachievable goals to his staff. Milestones that need 9 months will be planned for 3 months; each staff member will be burdened with the work of 4 people. There will be no link between the plan and the do-able.

Barry will burn out most of the people who work for him. They will be replaced and the board will probably accept the derivative delays that stem from employee turnover. Every single plan and budget will only serve one purpose-managing the investors’ expectations. 

Employees will bitch, morale will be low, many engineers will suffer from insomnia and digestive problems. Barry will divorce, see a shrink and age. Ten years later, Barry will be a very wealthy man, and his company’s history will appear in almost every business magazine.

Classical Organization Development has no added value in such a situation, because transparency and a healthy work environment are building blocks of our outdated profession, which is geared to a world that is almost disappearing before our very eyes.

What can be done for start up? That is a different post. 

The commitment

The fully functioning product which you purchased will be delivered, installed by Nov 4th and set to go the very same day.

What happened on Nov 4th?

The product was delivered in May the following year, however it had not yet been fully tested. 60% of revenue generating features were “still in the pipeline”. The client threatens to litigate although the vendor is blaming the client for “having misled us on the level of site readiness and employee skill”.

The scribbling on the wall 

No one should have been surprised because the slip was scribbled on the wall, if you just know how to read it.

Here are a few clues that will allow you to perhaps foresee the crash, albeit not prevent it.

1. The client “over buys”, meaning he presses for a client commitment because he himself is in trouble. For example, the client needs to increase market share by 30% “or you are out of a job”.
2. The aggressive commitment is made by shoving it down developers throats. Nay sayers are pushed aside and people with high confidence and low technical savvy take over.
3. Employees indeed are willing to make aggressive commitments, but only like this: “when Silvan delivers his piece, and QA has signed off, and the real-time folks deliver their piece, I”m sure we can make it, even if it’s a bit challenging”.
4. Risks, obstacles are smoothed away by fancy verbal tap-dancing. Certain things are no longer documented and status reports are cryptic and ambiguous.
5. More people are thrown at the job, but the number of skilled people is in decline because the top professionals have left or checked out.

Even if you foresee all this shit happening, it still cannot be stopped. Often, this is the way that the particular business cycle functions and everyone is making lots of money despite this apparent insanity.