Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

The usual brilliant observation from Kathy Sierra:

So yes, I'm thinking Mr. CEO of Very Large Company would say that their company should take the upstart whatever-it-takes person over the ever-compromising team player. "If that person shakes us up, gets us to rethink, creates a little tension, well that's a Good Thing", the CEO says. riiiiiiiiiight. While I believe most CEOs do think this way, wow, that attitude reverses itself quite dramatically the futher you reach down the org chart. There's a canyon-sized gap between what company heads say they want (brave, bold, innovative) and what their own middle management seems to prefer (yes-men, worker bees, team players). "

I worked for a short while for a company that shall remain nameless in Waterloo, Canada, that produced software for healthcare. This company couldn't seem to make a decision about anything. I on the other hand made numerous decisions, not always correct, but always justifiable and supportable. And my division shipped product and had happy customers.

So obviously I had to go. Which is fine. Business is business. But the most telling moment came when someone who also worked at the company was talking to my wife and heard that I had left. Her proud response?

They get rid of people that rock the boat.

I was shipping product, delighting customers, and increasing revenue. But I had to go because I was rocking the boat.

Every company claims that they want people that will do what it takes to take them to the next level. People with a fire in their belly. Insert your favorite metaphor here. But in my experience less that 1 in 10 companies want anybody that might attempt to change the way they do things now.

I was recently speaking to a recruiter about a senior management position. They stressed the need to someone that could motivate people, explaining that the staff were long term employees, overworked, and somewhat burned out. The current management wanted to improve the culture and to motivate the employees.

So a posed a couple of questions for the management. And one response came back that they expected to improve the situation by adding more process. Let's think about that for a second:

We're going to make our employees happy by adding more process.

These are signs of failing companies, possibly on a permanent decline.If you are a CEO, you should make it a mandatory part of your day to meet with some of the folks your staff are about to hire, and see just what type of person is being chosen to take your company to the next level.

And to make sure that the next level is a higher one.