When I ask executives “what’s your company’s greatest unmet challenge?” they most often go silent, contemplating whether to articulate what they know, or which one to articulate.
What I’ve discovered is that the unmet challenge is most often the ‘elephant in the room’ and closely associated with a ‘sacred cow’ or two.
The ‘elephant’ is well known to most people in the company, and could be stupid processes that are followed by habit, defective products or services that nobody improves, and destructive people that nobody removes.
The ‘sacred cow’ is a person, process, or product that is protected by people with influence, usually as a personal agenda, and certainly not for the greater good. These people with influence may have formal authority or are informal influencers.
There can be massive value gained from dealing with the ‘elephant’ or ‘cow’, such as cultural improvement, better engagement and performance, more revenue, less cost and greater opportunities realised.
Dealing with them requires the courage, authority and resolve of a leadership team to openly honestly and effectively execute the actions required.
If the people responsible are within the leadership team, then the remainder of the team must make an effective call on those people. That requires courage, better practice and learning.
So what ‘elephants’ and ‘sacred cows’ exist in your company and what could you do to resolve them?
