Summary

The article highlights widespread inefficiency and mismanagement in companies, including lack of strategic clarity, poor hiring practices, and a failure to respect and develop employees.

Abstract

The article paints a bleak picture of the internal dynamics of many companies, citing various studies to support its claims. It reveals that a vast majority of employees are unaware of their company's strategy, and there is a high rate of poor management hires. Managers often lack the time to respect their employees, contributing to a cycle of bad hires and unclear job roles. The lack of priority alignment with CEO goals and the prevalence of low-value tasks suggests a systemic problem in organizational management. The author expresses frustration over these issues, emphasizing that the solutions should be straightforward: invest in people, provide training, and foster respect and opportunities for growth, which in turn should lead to financial success.

Opinions

The author is critical of the 95% failure rate in companies' hiring and strategic practices, suggesting it would be unacceptable in any other business context.
There is a perceived disconnect between senior leadership and the reality of their organizations, with a significant number of managers being the wrong fit for their roles.
The article points out the irony that while companies are quick to address fiscal issues, they continuously overlook fundamental management and operational inefficiencies.
The author dismisses the discussions by "thought leaders" about the future of work as disconnected from the actual, problematic state of many companies.
There is a sense of urgency for change, with the author calling for immediate action to improve the current state of organizational management, despite the looming prospect of automation.

WTF Is Even Happening At Most Companies, Honestly?

Work sucks.

Just a quick rundown:

In one study, 95% of employees indicated not knowing what the strategy of where they work is
Per Gallup, 82% of managers end up being the wrong hire
60% of managers say they “don’t have the time” to respect their employees
95% of companies indicate making “bad hires” consistently, and 33%+ of those “aren’t sure of the cost” associated with that
67% of senior leaders can’t name the priority of their CEO
7 in 10 enterprise employees may spend most of their week on “low-value, overlapping” tasks
Poor middle management costs the U.S. about $3 trillion (with a T) per year
Numerous companies report being “unclear” on what job roles they need

Seriously, though. What the ever-loving shit is happening in these organizations? This isn’t complicated. Get people. Train the people. Respect the people. Give them opportunities. Make money as a result of their growth and the product/service’s growth.

There’s way too much bullshit and ineffectiveness at most places.

Could you imagine going to a CEO and telling him he had a 95% failure rate in his business? He’d smack you in the mouth. But you know what? He does. Hiring and strategy (see above). Now tell him, “Oh, you’ve got a 82% failure rate among the guys and women who manage your execution-level workers.” He jab a knife in your thigh. But it’s true. And we’ve all worked in those places.

An operational or fiscal failure rate of even 0.00001 would probably get an all-hands meeting called and people flown in from various locations, but the stuff above just keeps happening.

Now, I know automation is coming and the robots may take 1 in every 2 jobs. So people may phase out of work eventually, but probably not entirely and it’ll take a bit of time for that to be a reality in most orgs. We can get this right. But we don’t. We honestly don’t seem to care.

And here’s the true bullshit from the “thought leaders” and influencers and futurists and future of work experts: you absolutely cannot have a conversation about any of this stuff — what work should look like, etc. — without starting from the above. This is the reality for most people. No strategy, terrible managers, hiring whiffs left and right. Any discussion of where we could go has to begin by acknowledging how presently eff’ed we are in a lot of companies. See above.

/Sunday rant/

Want to make this better? Let’s do that.