Page 243 - An Indispensible Resource for Being a Credible Activist

tion, demotions, loss of health care, increased use of government-funded social services,
increased violent crime, homelessness, psychosocial problems for children and families,
defaulted mortgages, and early death. Those things are bad enough. When headlines such
as “Big Three Auto CEOs Flew Private Jets to Ask for Taxpayer Money” are printed, con-
cerns about mismanagement, fraud, and waste consume all Americans, not just workplace
leaders. The court of public opinion will influence profits. The more corporate mismanage-
ment results in taxpayer money being spent, the more impossible it becomes to even attempt
to justify it and to justify not having prevented it.
The following sections redefine outdated concepts of corporate muscle and fat in a way
that keeps pace with the twenty-first-century realities of globalization. Most importantly, HR
credible activists and business leaders who realize the value of strategic governance based
in proven OD practices are ahead of the competition in every way. The cost-saving linch-
pins presented throughout will ensure sustainable profitability. Concrete governance strate-
gies are necessary in order to build an organization infrastructure that prevents costly
noncompliance and garners employee loyalty in the event that determined outliers succeed
in breaking through procedural firewalls. The crucial linchpins in competitive governance
strategies are outlined later in this chapter.

CUT UNNECESSARY COSTS

The list of unnecessary costs below is not just a list of things to be delegated and then
ignored. We’ve all heard the phrase “it comes from the top,” and in business success, noth-
ing could be truer. Leaders must take these risks seriously even after they delegate them to
competent employees by supporting robust internal systems that prevent them.
Each of these is an example of systemic corporate dysfunction, which operates like a
disease that can decimate a business, whether it is a small dry-cleaning operation in the sub-
urbs, a family-run winery in the country, or a large multibillion-dollar international com-
pany in a city. Each of these has been the root cause of countless lawsuits and fines for many
companies whose leadership did not recognize the costly significance of them.
One thing we have learned in OD in the real world is that each of these often causes
another and another and all, or nearly all, of these plague another until a company simul-
taneously experiences layers and layers of interconnected dysfunction.
1. Inefficiency and financial mismanagement
2. Incompetence
3. Nepotism/rater-bias in performance evaluation
4. Unresolved conflict
5. Harassment/bullying/discrimination/retaliation
6. Inconsistent application of policies
7. Fraud and other illegal activity
8. Refusal to share power appropriately
9. Closed systems—not welcoming or responding to employee feedback
10. Workplace illness and injury

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