How Things Fall Apart
That’s how things fall apart: insiders know but keep their mouths shut, outsiders are clueless, and the decay that started slowly gathers momentum as the last of the experienced and competent workforce burns out, quits or retires.
Outsiders are shocked when things fall apart. Insiders are amazed the duct-tape held this long. The erosion of critical skills and institutional knowledge is invisible to outsiders, while everyone inside who saw the unstoppable decay either left or burned out.
Those who remain are the ambitious who lack the experience to reverse the decline and the self-awareness to realize they’re way over their head. They’re ambitious enough to want the managerial title and power but don’t have the necessary experience and competence to lead a brutally difficult and painful turnaround.
So they either “stay the course” doing more of what’s failed or they flail around, trying one reorganization-fad-of-the-day after another, pushing the few remaining competent staffers to leave and thus steepening the decline.
Everyone who cared and was competent in the support staff either left or burned out trying to doing three jobs at once. The most prescient and experienced staffers noted the decline in managerial competence and the decay of the operational skills needed to keep the ship afloat, and so they found a better position elsewhere or retired early.
The less prescient but competent then tried to compensate for failing management and poorly trained staff by doing more of the work themselves. First they do the work of one-and-half less competent employees, then of two and after that, three for a brief time until their health is destroyed and they burn out. They either go on medical leave, retire or quit as the sole means of retaining whatever health they still possess.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
