Late Signs

It's astonishing how long a company can function in a state of dysfunction. Everyone knows something is going wrong, but for years all efforts to change things have failed, and an air of defeatism reigns.

Late signs usually take the form of demeaning all previous and current efforts to bring new ideas into the organization.

• There are too many competing demands for scarce resources.
• Let's not make things worse.
• Those ideas won't work. We've tried that before.
• Nobody up top is listening to us any more.
• There's just no time for planning and analysis.
• It's the people, until some of those guys go - die or retire, nothing will happen.
• How is it that they are getting the business, not us.
• The new guy... he's the son-in-law.

At Pragmos, we see these comments as signs that an organization is almost fully trapped, but it's never too late to open the trap, and let new ideas and energies come in.