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When I worked in a bank (one that no longer exists) 35 years ago, before the regulations came tumbling down, I heard one wag say something that stayed with me. He said, "Bankers need regulations because most of them are too stupid and greedy to do business well without them." Sad to say, he was right.
For most of my career, I was in the manufacturing sector. (You know, the kind of business that got shipped overseas first?) With an extensive grounding in Information Systems (from soup to nuts), I found myself 'graduating' to quality assurance, internal audit, management review, and operational analysis. (Maybe my ability to 'hack' our systems, no matter where, had something to do with it. I had my "white hat" firmly attached to my skull.) That, of course, gave me an extensive familiarity with such things as Baldridge, life-cycle management, TQM, GAAP, GAAS, ISO-9000, and a host of background materials ... my favorite was Drucker. (I'm a very conventional business fellow.)
One syndrome was clear, no matter where or what I saw. It was the lazy, spoiled ("privileged"), stupid folks that cheated and played games attempting to make 'quality' a sales motto and mere window-dressing. When they weren't detected and weeded out, they took over and destroyed departments, branches, and whole companies. The funny thing was that it CREATED more work than needed, made it impossible to work cooperatively and collaboratively, and INVARIABLY increased the downstream workload and costs. It also chased the customers away - they're not that stupid.
The vast majority of employees try their damnedest to do good work. The audit teams I led always met with skepticism when we (sincerely) said "we're here to help you." Thus, I made CERTAIN we found a way to prove it early in the engagement. I had a "contract" with MY management and the auditee's senior management that ABSOLUTELY NO SCAPEGOATING would be permitted as a result of our audits - except in clear cases of theft or fraud. We held 'em to it, too. We knew that folks were often put in positions where "someone else" would benefit from their failure ... and often contributed to it. I made sure that those scapegoat-nominees were part of the solution - and visibly rewarded when they succeeded. Very visibly. It had an enormously positive impact on field operations. The people actually noticed ... and liked it.
Fish rot from the head ... and it's a maxim I've seen over and over borne out.
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