| The Danger of Pressing Our Advantage |
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| Written by John Berling Hardy |
| Thursday, 06 May 2010 15:53 |
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Those in the inner circle use a strategy often described as 'creating the disease and then providing the cure'. It creates a base state of anxiety and fear. This creates a blowback effect wherein the employees become resentful and recalcitrant. The 'cure' for this 'disease' is for senior management to tighten controls in order in order to keep all in line. A corporate culture such as that created by the Players will stress compliance over excellence. Those in the company with intellect, strong will, or who are particularly gifted in any way, are deemed a threat and quickly removed from the playing field. In their place, the upper ranks of middle management are steadily replaced by staff who are compliant - those who are not too bright, not too resourceful, not too imaginative, but reliably corrupt. Simply put: they are Drones, eminently controllable and predictable. At the Drone level, the organization is ruled by fear. Everyone is terrified of standing out - be it in a positive or a negative way. If they are incompetent they are removed, but if they excel, they risk the jealousy of their coworkers. This CYA mentality reifies the status quo while becoming a barrier against change. With the passage of time the number of people who see through the veil steadily increases. This in turn promotes corruption, absenteeism, as well as a further brain drain within the company. An organization populated by Players and Drones can very often appear to be efficient because of the narrow and restrictive way in which productivity is defined. Eventually the situation arises where everyone is terribly busy, but busy doing the wrong things. The Game tends to create a kind of parallel reality within the company bringing with it a kind of cult mentality. This makes it not only unresponsive to the changing conditions outside in the marketplace, but makes it resistant to change of any kind. A rigid, reactionary culture is not responsive to changes in the market environment. This means that over time the company's senior management becomes increasingly out of touch with what the needs of customers, the demands of suppliers, as well as with the competition might be planning. The result being that the company is usually completely blindsided to crisis when it does appear. Over time outside competition catches up. Younger, hungrier companies which are at a less advanced stage in the Game's life-cycle, are quicker to seize new opportunities in the market and adjust to market conditions, and therefore can better align themselves with the direction it is likely to take in the future. When you add the two trends together, there is a tipping point after which the fall of the company becomes inevitability - it only becomes a question of time. Having created a Game the Players also know what it is time to take your winnings and get out. When the company does fail the Players will have long jumped ship, while the bovine Drones will be left holding the ball. Once again with the artful use of misdirection they will convince us that someone else is to blame. This process is like a cancer, in that once it has begun, it cannot but run its course. The specific timing and severity of each symptom is difficult to predict but the sequence is predetermined. About the Author: John Berling Hardy has dedicated himself to providing his clients with effective strategies with which to deal with the Players they encounter in both the personal and business lives www.playingtheplayers.com |