Notes from a Re-Org: The Conference Call

My group is going through a massive re-org. While I have some inside information, I can’t begin to predict the outcome for myself or my team - or whether I will be content with the outcome. This could be amazing. This could be horrible. But, I will say, in the interim, this is an amazing popcorn moment. Pop the corn, and sit back and watch.

One feature of any re-org is the corporate conference call. There is always a call in which some senior people discuss the changes and the goals, at a high level. The calls tend to be vacuous and heavy on the spin. They are stilted and weird. And they always always have a Q & A component. 

There are only 2 types of questions asked during these QA periods:

1. The baiting question: The real question poking at some tangible problem with the new plan, typically asked by someone who either has nothing to lose, or no social acumen. The presenters on the call placate the person with a non-answer, and then note that they hate the questioner, for future reference.

2. The sycophantic question: A question designed basically to kiss the ass of the presenters. It is the question version of the phrase “I, for one, welcome our new overlords.”  Depending on the speaker, this could be a really good strategic move.

Naturally, I ask no questions. I am a conscientious objector. But, the popcorn is good eats.

Hedging the Upside

In finance class, we are taught about hedging. Hedging is not only a topiary term, but also a way of protecting yourself against a negative outcome.

So, for example, you could buy a stock for $10 a share, and hope it goes up to $15. But, it could just as easily drop to $5 - so you buy a hedge - an option to sell it at $9. With a guaranteed out at $9 (at a loss of $1), you hedge the downside risk of the stock.

In business, however, I see the opposite behavior. Everyone wants to define their roles and bailiwicks and responsibilities so tightly that they’d like to hedge the upside. They want to prevent any risk of exceeding expectations.

For example - you might insist on a certain specific list of deliverables for which you are accountable. Or you might set a metric for total blog posts. Or you might make a list of requests you’re willing to entertain.

By capping your required output, you basically remove from yourself the responsibility of being agile, flexible or creative. You meet your basic check-box items, and nothing more. And the more you lock down - content, format, length, structure, stakeholders - the more you hedge the upside.You are preventing yourself from making $15. you lock yourself in to $10.

Now, some bond investors among us might think - great - but no downside risk either! But consider this.. absent a major organizational reorg or some major failure, people are rarely punished for taking risks or being creative. Their ideas may not get adopted, but, fundamentally, there IS NO DOWNSIDE.

Still, the vast majority of corporate creatures painstakingly work to hedge the upside… and then complain about the low return on investment.

Clipboard People Tuesday

Clipboard people exist everywhere.  For the uninitiated, clipboard people are the slightly misguided worker bees of most companies.  Without them, nothing gets done.  No one takes down notes or follows up on action items.  With them, unfortunately, a lot of stupid work gets done.  Here are the top moments of clipboardry I’ve seen in the past few months:

Level of Idiocy Diffusion through Organization: LOW

* The email people are still working on an email campaign that initial analysis suggests will generate 40 responses at a cost of over $200/response.  

* The social marketing team used their $50,000 budget on building a Valentine’s Day infographic that was shared by no one and inexplicably uses the equivalent of the words “love” and “process” in the same sentence.  Have you hugged your data center today?

* The social influence team believes it’s very critical to not only pay bloggers to post articles but that also we should buy media on their sites up to $5,000/blogger.  Side note: Thongcharm is in the wrong business.

Level of Idiocy Diffusion through Organization: MEDIUM

* The planners create a 20 slide presentation about strategy with approximately 10 words/slide and declare that they have “covered a full consumer strategy” with the client by virtue of the word “consumer” appearing on at least 5 slides.

* Similarly, the planners also believe that because the word “story” appeared on the slides at least 15 times, that the client buys off on moving towards a social oriented message.

Level of Idiocy Diffusion through Organization: HIGH

* The account team, in response to being provided with requested write-ups that they asked for which are apparently urgent and required to keep the account, at a meeting that is setup for them to focus to review the write-up they requested, starts the meeting by saying “what is the purpose of this document?”

* The business development team seems surprised when, after having given a pitch to a large client with a small budget for a small project, having brought 5 people who are  senior resources including and not limited to the CEO and various published authors, having prepared a proposal for a $100 mm business with massive potential for TV and brand advertising, seem surprised that the client thinks “this might be more than they can afford or need” and selects a lower end agency instead.