I've been watching with a certain amount of detached interest the actions of my company as it attempts to resolve its current financial problems. The stock isn't doing that well, which of course affects both the financial reserves of the organization as well as the perception of the investment community regarding our essential worth. The less you're worth, the less you're... worth.
There hasn't been any buzz regarding these actions at my level. We do what we do, and we're not asked, let alone enouraged, to change the environment or how we do what we do. That's clearly Not Our Job. This is a very patriarchal organization, and fixing the problem is Management's Job. Not all of them get to play in the decision making pool, though. Some just get to be the people that do the scut work. Our group's manager has at the moment the task of preparing to terminate some people as a cost-saving measure. It pains him, and the situation's not his fault, nor something that he can control. He's just the point of a sword being wielded by people far up the organizational food chain. (I considered pointing out that he could terminate me if he'd give me my pension now, but he would have thought that I was joking, and he's already shown that although he's a more people-sensitive manager than his peers (it doesn't take much to get the rep of being more people-sensitive in that crowd, a particularly cheerless group), he's strictly old line in some regards. Humor is frowned upon unless Approved By Management. I found this out during an earlier episode of cost-cutting, when I got stomped on for an admittedly tacky bit of humor.)
A web page on our internal system says that the best thing to do in this situation is to let the people who do the selling for the organization be free to do it. Don't tie them down with unnecessary calls, meetings, and so forth. (I almost wrote 'and so froth', which oddly enough would also make sense. Well, sort of.) Thats good advice. But it does make me wonder why it is that we only feel it necessary to limit it to that group, and only at this time. Because by not making that a global standard, one thats encouraged all the time, we're saying that we do have actions, meetings, and procedures that are unnecessary to the success of the business. Some of them are done for the purpose of running the structure of the business, while others are done to meet regulatory and audit requirements. (Upon the latter, a hideous pox should descend.) We just accept them as part of being here, and after a while they're as important as the actual reason that we're here.
Its only when the house is burning that we think about whats key to our existence.
