Peter's Management Praxis

Home

“In many instances, senior management in the most effective firms worry more about people and about learning than they do about having the right strategy.” --Jeffrey Pfeffer, Ph.D., author, The Human Equation: Putting People First

Conflicts are created by two powerful forces: 1) ambiguous direction and 2) misaligned employee motivation. The latter of the two often is exacerbated by the former. Ironically, both are so common in corporate life, many companies don't realize that either are present. It's like Los Angeles smog. You can see it from a distance, but when you're immersed in the sulfurous pollution, it is not as noticeable.

Often, companies in transition will come to us for meeting facilitation. Nearly every client--whether top management or a functional group--felt they knew the direction and strategy, but needed help with the journey to get there. In 100 percent of these cases, the opposite was true. When interviewed individually, management team members stated widely varying goals and their direct reports were even more ambiguous. The problem wasn't that the team didn't know how to get to a destination; it wasn't clear on where the destination was. This smoggy sense of direction lead to team misalignment and internal conflicts disguised as "personality clashes."

This isn't just an issue I've seen with clients; the pioniq process was actually born through in-house experience. While working as an executive, I realized that simply identifying a strategy only solved part of the problem. I then began to work to identify and align employee motivations with the corporate objective.

Each time I took over a staff or hired new people, I’d sit down and discover who they were—their passions, goals, struggles, and their frustrations. Nearly every time I did this, I’d run into brilliant people assigned to do dumb things: an award-winning writer answering the phones and making copies; a brilliant organizer relegated to burning marketing CDs simply because she lacked a college degree. The list continues.

After much trial and some errors, I came to the conclusion that organizations unwittingly drag their own anchor by viewing people as task managers, not individuals with a power to create, define, and excel in virtually any situation. Hence, the pioniq process was born: Align vision and strategy with personal motivations and unleash the power of people.

The results are astounding.

Employees once considered “C” players arise to become “A” players. New ideas begin to flow from sources once considered marginal. Loyalty increases. Turnover decreases. And those not with the program self-extract, leaving you with a team of highly motivated, highly functional players who do more with less—because their jobs and their life goals exist in synergy.

Jeffery Pfeffer, in his renowned book on management, The Human Equation: Putting People First writes: “in many instances, senior management in the most effective firms worry more about people and about learning than they do about having the right strategy.” He proved, in his classic academic style, what I learned by experience.

A good friend of mine once told me, “it’s about the people.” She was right. I encourage you to read more about the process and our products. It’ll change the way you do management.

Cheers,

Peter Fuller, Founder