Too big to fail or to ignorant to collaborate?

'To criticize the firm's direction was to be branded a traitor and tossed out the door.'
 

I'm currently reading Andrew Sorkin's 'Too Big to Fail: The inside story of how Wall Street and Washington fought to save the financial syste, - and themselves'. It's a fast paced, insiders view of how Lehman Bros collapsed and the GFC escalated.

The sentence at the top of this post is from early in the book and provides a crucial diagnosis of  how the culture in firms such as Lehman's were a direct contributing factor, if not the main cause of the financial crisis. It reminds me of a saying regarding management teams - if I have eight people in a room all saying the same thing, I have seven people too many – essentially showing how Lehman’s chose the one voice, dedication to the corporate line and aversion to conflict over any different points of views.

In the communication world I think this mindset has the potential to be challenged like never before. The focus on social media and collaboration tools is done in the hope of better discussion, to challenge the status quo and promote idea sharing. The benefits are clear for every one to see - but in order to do that there needs to be an acceptance of risk, criticism, discussion and debate.

Are collaboration and social media concepts that in many cases will never truly be adopted, or used to their true capacity in some firms because of the belief that to have a different opinion is to be disloyal or be branded a trouble maker?

The lesson learnt from Lehman’s was that these differing and conflicting thoughts and opinions were shared among the employees with email trails demonstrating the true, yet publicly unsaid, internal criticism of the organisation.  The failure of the management to embrace the opportunity, warts and all, means that social media and collaboration tools could not play any part in averting the final outcome for Lehman.

It will be interesting to see what lessons other businesses, especially investment firms, learn and whether social media/collaboration tools can be embraced to discuss a healthy dose of conflict.

JH

Is 'it's not fair' a suitable argument?

I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon creeping into the media and issues management for specific bodies. I’ve now seen two very recent examples where a proposed change is fought against on the basis that it will harm an industry and employment.

The Australian Hotels Association is claiming that the pub and club industry will be ‘wiped out’ because of proposed pokies reform by Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie. More recently, the ban on live exports of cattle to Indonesia is being protested against because it will ‘destroy farmers’.

Let me make it clear I have great sympathy with farmers and love going to my local RSL, but I can’t help but see one huge flaw in their objection – is keeping a business running a good enough reason to continue injustice? If this was the case would there have been the burning desire to get rid of slavery or fight apartheid? The decision to stop slavery certainly had a real impact on the way Americans operated their businesses and on their standard of living. But it was the right thing to do.

I don’t doubt that the live export ban could be better managed and compensation is deserved, and potentially the same for pokies reform. But if we are all agreement that the practice itself is wrong, then the fact that some people will suffer in the short term to improve long term standards is not really a suitable defense

JH.

Parliamentary ejections: are they still acceptable behaviour?

I've been watching Victorian and Federal parliament question time sittings with interest this week (get a life, I hear ya) and am amazed that the standard of behaviour continues to be seen as acceptable by our apparent leaders.

In Canberra on Wednesday we had six pollies ejected from question time, including one who was out for 24 hours. This led the Speaker, Harry Jenkins, to allude that 'Those outside expect better from all of us, from all of us. And I'm conscious that that includes myself.'. I say he is on the money - we do and should expect better. I stated in a tweet at the time that if six players were sin binned during the State of Origin rugby league match there would be outcry. Yet some how it is seen as part of the theatrics, the drama of politics.

Again today, four politicians were ejected from the Victorian parliament. But again this seems to be seen as normal behaviour. My far from scientific evidence reveals two tweets throughout the day about the Spring St ejections. By comparison the suspension of Geelong football player was mentioned in 105 tweets. Why is it that we as a community seem to be outraged when  footballer is suspended but don't bat an eyelid when the people paid to represent us act out of line and essentially behave in a manner that would not be tolerated in any other workplace or schoolyard?

Maybe I'm the one out of touch and this sort of drama is needed to ensure that there is at least something colourful to fill the required token quota of political coverage on the nightly news, but I will say with certainty that the Mr Jenkins was definitely speaking for me yesterday - I do expect better.

JH