Smart People Doing Smart Things

A couple of weeks ago, I ranted about the litany of amazingly insensitive, counter-productive and energy-deflating things 'smart' people at work do all too regularly. Thank you to those who wrote to remind me of the many other dumb things smart people do. Quite a list, to be sure. A few worth noting:

• Insisting that processes -- no matter how flawed or inefficient -- be followed to the letter "because that's the way we've always done it"

• Confusing a high-gloss, monthly employee magazine produced by your Corporate Communications department with 'timely communication'
  

• Using rumor and/or innuendo to incite internal competition between departments

And my favorite, undoubtedly the most insensitive and stupid thing of them all:

• Leaving drawings of revised organization charts on conference room white boards for anyone to see (Incomplete erasures qualify for this crime.)
  

A special shout-out to RZ who offered the logical possibility that my premise itself was wrong. Maybe people who do dumb things aren't particularly smart. As he put it, in not so many words, "You are what you do -- especially if you do it a lot." Point taken.

Which made me think of The Office's Dwight Schrute's brilliant advice.



To be fair (but not nearly as fun), let's consider the other side of this coin. There are numerous examples of smart people actually doing smart things at work to help their organizations in these challenging times. Some of these include:

• Using a company-wide voice mail message to kill a rampant rumor in real time
  

• Creating cross-functional 'design teams' to address an urgent business issue and, in the process, reducing the damaging effects of 'silos'
  

• Holding 'town hall' meetings, led by executives, to discuss, in frank and direct terms, the state of the company and its plans to improve performance

• Revamping and/or eliminating inefficient, time-consuming processes (e.g., purchasing, performance appraisal system)
  

• Dealing aggressively with poor performers

• Executives reducing their pay and perquisites before asking their people to do the same (yes, there are good examples of this)
  

• Using a strategic plan to engage employees at all levels and to drive aggressive performance improvement (more on this next week)

• Asking internally and/or externally for help when important problems can't be solved
  

• Implementing a creative process to identify top performing - high potential employees and then working with those people to build and execute a career development plan

• Involving customers in the design and execution of improved customer service delivery mechanisms (shocking but true!)
  

• Expanding the concept of 'business partnership' to internal and external customers, key vendors, public constituencies and even the press

• Ensuring that everyone is accountable for customer service

• Creating a 'scorecard', updated weekly, so that company performance against key success criteria is known by all
  

See, I told you it wouldn't be as fun to consider the positive. But admit it: It made you wonder about possibilities, no?

Intelligence does exist in the workplace -- even if you see little or no evidence of it where you work. Sadly, our evidence suggests that your experience is more the norm, given that the frequency of observed Stupid Behavior far outweighs that of Smart Behavior. If true, many companies will have a much more difficult time emerging from these times strong, healthy and capable of continued growth. They'll also have a harder time keeping you and, alas, their customers.

Speaking of the egocentric and self-absorbed sometimes getting it right, congratulations to the National Football League for not allowing Rush Limbaugh to pursue partial ownership of the St. Louis Rams. Although Rush was quick to blame everyone but himself, the league recognized that his comments bordering on racism might, just might, undermine the NFL image.

NFL 1, Rush 0. Nice.

See you next week.