Japanese Knotweed in Business?

There is a story in the news today about how Japanese Knotweed was brought into this country, as a decorative garden plant, and has now taken hold across  Europe. To counteract its voracious advance, the suggestion is to bring its natural predator in from Japan. Who is to say that the predator, faced with its old enemy, will not choose an easier British plant. If you want to know the damage ‘imports’ can do to the environment, ask New Zealanders.

Being a person of one track mind, it made me think whether the same thing doesn’t happen in business. Imagine you have brought in a new Manager, who has a track record of looking good and getting quick results. His (or her) ruthless leadership style  and focus on short term gain, ensures a surge of productivity and accountability. However, over time this style pervades the culture of the company, morale goes down, a blame culture creeps in and before you know it, it’s everywhere. It pervades at all levels. Ultimately, staff leave and the profits go into decline.

To counteract this, you bring in management consultants to put things right. They go through the place and instead of dealing with the manager, they pick on the easier target of under achievers. The real problem continues.

Alternative ways to control the ‘business knotweed’ are to:

1. Be very careful who you introduce in the first place. How will their style fit into your environment?

2. Track progress and keep your finger on what is going on within the culture. Listen to your people. Like the real knotweed, if it had been dealt with earlier, it wouldn’t have got such a strangle hold.

3. Persevere and root out the real cause of the problem. Be prepared to dig down deep if necessary. This could be hard unpleasant work, but you need to make sure no small element remains, which can come back to haunt you in the future.

4. Contain the problem by managing it or ‘treat’ it with training, but if that fails, it might need complete removal.

5. If you bring outsiders in to deal with it, use the right ones and make sure they focus on the real issue, and don’t create a new one for you.