Utpal Writes          On Project Management, Leadership, Technology and Self-Help

1. Domineering leadership: Leadership does not accept disagreements out of anxiety or haughtiness. “Yes mans” are climbing the wall of quick success here. High employee turnover ratio in senior management.
2. Poor evaluation systems: Inefficient feedback and evaluation systems incapable of providing correct leadership and management performance evaluation data to the top management.
3. Hidden agendas: Existence of invisible profit centres by cutting employee benefits. Hiring and promotions are based on political agendas. Hiring from personal references or relatives to pocket personal loyalty at the cost of other really qualified employees and/or organization needs.
4. Biased rewards: Promotions, salaries, perks and bonuses are unfairly linked with performance.
5. Wasteful use of resources: Resources are allocated based on favouritism and on personal agendas rather than real business needs.
6. Departments are like internal kingdoms: Department heads believe that more people they manage and employ department specific processes, they will become more powerful. This results in intense influence battles around operations and strategies.
7. Asymmetrical work distribution: One department is over-utilized while other are weighed down. Managers twist work distribution activities to satisfy their personal egos and play the push and pull game to their benefit.
8. Over management: Deep hierarchies and many management layers are in the organization which encumbers communication and results in slower execution and wide-ranging red tapes.
9. Disjointed organization efforts: Operating in own silos and turf wars between rival managers are normal which decreases transparency. Such silos almost always result in fragmented projects and budgets.
10. More talk and less work: Talks regarding ‘What Should Be Done’ and ‘What Could Have Been Done’ are in the air. Individual Image building and management is more important than work.
11. Uncontrolled and inefficient meetings: Heated cross-departments meetings with debates and focusing on scoring points rather than sharing responsibility and collaborating to solve the problems which generally end without conclusions or clear action items.
12. Controversies in unity and unity in controversy: Every person thinks of the self. Low sense of unity and teamwork.  The chief decision making criteria is “What is in there for me to take benefit?”
13. Consistent chaos: Management allows continuous chaos in place. They spend most of the time in building strategies to keep consistent pressure on execution teams and blame them for not completing the tasks.
14. Moral decline: Muted level of pledge and enthusiasm by the teams. Little or zero celebration due to internal negative competition.
15. Bad-mouthing: Bad-mouthing among the executives and managers becomes common and sometimes even public.
16. Extremely stressful workplace: Unclarity of work. Extended work hours. High rate of absenteeism and high employee turnover.

See Also:

1. Disaster-Prone Business Organizations 30
2. Workplace I Love As A Power-Performer (and you would too!)
3. 15 Things That Employees Want In Order To Feel Motivated
4. What Can Be Termed As A “World Class” Organization?
5. Five Random Thoughts On Organizational Leadership
6. Eleven Qualities to Hunt for While Interviewing a Potential Manager
7. Nine Irrefutable Ways to Establish and Maintain Profound Relationship with Your Boss