It’s been interesting reading about the Wells Fargo situation…which made me think about my lesson learned: Be maniacal about doing the right thing. So obvious right? But clearly, very smart, very dedicated people still take a wrong turn. How does it happen? My observations….
- You become obsessed with an outcome no matter what. The organization was very aligned to the objective, but unfortunately, at any cost. Ideas that lead to economic benefits is usually when there’s the least amount of pushback, but probably need the most amount of scrutiny.
- You ignore data anomalies: increases in people departing the firm, a rise in complaints to HR…..why is it happening?
- You trust but don’t verify. The more senior you get, the harder it is to know everything going on. But really good senior people are constantly probing…not on everything, but on key things…like “can people game the system?” They don’t take it on faith…no matter how much they like the person.
- You don’t understand how the process works. If you don’t understand how the process works, you don’t know the right questions to ask.
- You lose touch with the folks on the ground: site visits, lunches, one on ones…these are the actions you can take to make sure that all is as it should be. A senior manager I worked for would never pre-announce his visits…he’d just show up, order lunch for junior people, hold impromptu Q&A sessions. No dog and pony shows….just real connections with people. Did his managers like it? Nope, but he figured a lot of things out on his own.