The Problem is: “it’s really not my problem”

“I know” he said “the management really should do something about it”. If there is a sentence that gets my blood boiling it is that one!  I am not referring to shop floor workers complaining about a lack of soap in the shower room but the whining lament of lazy middle class professionals that go around thinking that the problems confronting them need to be solved by anyone else but themselves.  In short I am talking about taking responsibility.

Over the last thirty years I have worked for many organizations, large and small, and the saddest experience I ever encounter is always apathy.  I am not sure where it comes from but it seems to me that there are some people that are born to take responsibility and to try and solve issues and there are others that simply stand on the sidelines waiting to see what happens. 

It is true that companies that do not invest in people development and constantly ignore the ideas and ambitions of their most precious resource, tend to end up with a grumbling layer of apathy within them.

In Egypt recently,  we have witnessed a revolution like no other before.  And if it has come about, in part, because of the use of the internet and multi-channel communications, then I cannot help but take encouragement that with the continued growth of social media tools impregnating the boundaries of company intranets and extranets, that maybe we will witness similar events inside poor performing multi-national corporations?

Now I do not see overthrows of power, with people waving flags and banners trying to out the CEO.  But I do see ambitious people finding new ways of circumnavigating the clay layer of ineffective managers that hold back progress and new ideas.

A question remains for Egypt. When the new Government is elected; will the people go back to relying on them to solve their problems or will this new sense of people power remain like some kind of religious awakening?  I am told that people don’t change, this may be true on an individual level but group behavior certainly does. I like to think that a tap has been turned on that can never be fully closed again.

Have a good week,

Harley