In a recent post Marty talked about false urgency being terrible for the performance, morale, and well being of a company. I’d like to add to this the wasted time, energy, and money on “initiatives”. Similar to how creating a false sense of urgency leaves the employees unmotivated and ridiculing the project, initiatives that do not support the mission of the company produce the same effect.

As an example of what I mean by “initiative” let me relate a project that was undertaken recently by a large corporation. In a cost reduction effort someone was assigned to walk around and patrol the office area for plugged in electronics and appliances. In my mind this is just ludicrous. First, the company has hired people they trust to build their product or systems.  If the company wants to initiate a cost reduction plan to reduce the electric bill, send a note out to the employees asking for their help. A much better approach is to demonstrate that you trust that they will help with reducing costs. Second, my bet is that the time wasted by this person patrolling the area, some manager monitoring and reviewing the patrols, and the other employees making fun of this cost the company more than it was able to reduce. And third, the company should weigh the cost of possibly having to replace a single great employee against the cost savings of such initiatives.

This example provided seems to be pushing to an extreme the silliness boundary of what someone can dream up under the guise of cost reduction but fails to interpret the further ramifications. Looking at just the balance sheet or income statement fails to take into account the wasted time by employees and aggravation over such imposed bureaucracy. Another clear sign to me of a company that is focused on the wrong things is when purchases must be performed through a centralized acquisitions organization. I understand and agree that there is no need for every department to negotiate a cell phone plan but when the IT department must involve a non-technical purchasing agent to whom they have to justify the purchase and allow that person to negotiate with the vendor, things have gone overboard. There is no reason that managers shouldn’t be given authorization for purchases up to various amounts and escalations going, not outside of their department, but just to their boss.

If you’re in an organization that has implemented these initiatives you should take the true pulse of the organization and see if you don’t come to the same conclusion. Working on these bureaucratic initiatives are likely costing you more in productivity, creativity, and deliverables than whatever amount you are saving.