Managers are blind? Are you one of them?
Let’s first define the concept of manager blindness? It is a state that restrains manages from making effective decisions. Decisions that bring results.
One of the most important factor that makes managers blind is that they operate within an organization. Despite the fact that the “center of business profits” or the factor influencing organizational growth lies outside the organization! Do you know what it is? It’s your Customer.
The only business results are produced by a customer who converts the costs and efforts of the business into revenues and profits through his willingness to exchange his purchasing power for the products or services of the business.
The decision-maker is outside rather than inside the business, yet an average executive fails to see the picture that customer sees and he fails to understand the changing demands of markets. That is why companies find it difficult to maintain continous growth.
The reason for manger blindness lies in the fact that What goes on outside is usually not even known firsthand. It is received through an organizational filter of reports, that is, in an already predigested and highly abstract form that imposes organizational criteria of relevance on the outside reality. Even the largest organization is unreal compared to the reality of the environment in which it exists. What really happens inside any organization is just effort and cost.
The outside, the environment which is the true reality, is well beyond effective control from the inside.
It is the inside of the organization that is most visible to the executive. It is the inside that has immediacy for him. Its relations and contacts, its problems and challenges, its crosscurrents and gossip reach him and touch him at every point. Unless he makes special efforts to gain direct access to outside reality, he will become increasingly inside-focused. The higher up in the organization he goes, the more will his attention be drawn to problems and challenges of the inside rather than to events on the outside.
The truly important events on the outside are not the trends. They are changes in the trends. These determine ultimately success or failure of an organization and its efforts. Such changes, however, have to be perceived; they cannot be counted, defined, or classified.
Thus it is possible that Executives may become blind to everything that is perception (i.e., event) rather than fact (i.e., after the event).
Manager blinds is one of the key challenges faced by executives today. This article is one in the series to make executives aware of the hidden challenges in project management, and to make them able to overcome. If you are interested to read more on “Becoming Effective Manager” subscribe to this blog or bookmark it.
