Not My Job Man

CEOs: how do you feel when you overhear one of your people say this line?

"It's not my job."

You see red, don't you? Or how about when you hear a sales guy say,

"That's manufacturing's problem."

I've witnessed that last one a lot in my career. The attitude is, sales will sell it, and engineering will have to figure out how to fulfill their promises. Or marketing will promise it, and customer service will have to handle the cascades of disgruntled customers who have basically been lied to. Or the company will produce it, and the resellers, or dealers, or channel partners will have to field all the service complaints because the product is deeply flawed.

Am I hitting a nerve? Is this something you, as CEO, have dealt with? Or maybe, something you are dealing with now, or something you always deal with, and have since your first days on your first job decades ago?

Earlier, I posted on the tension I've noticed in just about every organization between Marketing and Sales. Basically, they are coming at the same task from two very different perspectives. They often don't respect each other. Worse, they typically see each other as vying for the same finite resources, including the CEO's time, attention, and high regard.

Yesterday, I suggested that the problem was with the corporate pyramid itself, rather than with Sales or with Marketing.

Here, finally, is my humble solution. Well, my radical solution. But it's not one I made up myself. W.L. Gore has been using it for decades, and they are a highly successful privately held company. My guess is you, Mr. or Ms CEO, would be lucky to have their financial or operational success at your own company.

The answer? Do away with titles. Eliminate roles, and areas of responsibility. Instead, institute this culture shift: One company, one goal, with everyone working toward it.

Think about any organization, and what do you have? The very highest-ranking leader is a generalist: she is responsible for every function of the company, every single one!

Then, right below her on the org chart, what happens? Speciality. There's a head of finance. A head of manufacturing. Someone else in charge of sales, and a different person in charge of marketing. You've got Bob heading up IT, and Wanda in charge of people or "human resources." Don the legal council keeps you out of jail. Juan the sourcing guy deals with all the vendor contracts. I could go on, but I think you probably see my point.

Something goes wrong at your main data center? Everyone blames Bob. "Not my problem," the rest think, with a combination of relief and disgust. "Geek," some mutter under their breath. "What do we pay this guy for?" mutter others.

Sales start to tank? All eyes turn to John, the Senior VP of sales. "Let's get on it!" the rest of the company brays - as if the quality of the product doesn't matter at all, as if fulfillment of orders in a timely manner isn't a consideration, as if wild promises made in advertising have no bearing, as if employee churn and poor morale have nothing at all to do with why customers are wising up and fleeing the company in droves!

"Not my job" is completely unacceptable when uttered by a front line worker. So why is it so prevalent in the C-suite?