Checklist: Many organizations are structured for failure. Are you?

“Failure? It’s an attitude that is often preceded by its actual occurrence” – Futurist Jim Carroll

Have you ever noticed that you are surrounded by people who seem determined to set you on a path to failure? Or who somehow seem to find joy in some weird passion to bring you down than to build things up? That’s a sad and complex reality of our world today.

It’s not just that – beyond those who pursue failure as a goal, we are surrounded by organizations and people who regularly do the things that guarantee their failure.  In that context, remember this likely reality – 50% of the companies that you see around you today likely won’t be around you in but 10 short years. Much of it has to do with their attitude and actions (or lack thereof.)

Why do organizations fail? Because inaction is in their soul They are guilty of the sin of inertia. Here’s why:

• actions are based on lifelong lessons that no longer apply
• variation in routine is abhorred
• the strategies they have in place are often outdated by faster trends
• they are structured by command and control structures that don’t allow for agility
• outdated HR practices reward mediocrity
• individualism is punished
• risk is something to be feared, not embraced
• collaboration is absent
• corporate culture breeds change-resistance anti-bodies
• they discount the big thinkers who are changing their industry – they think they know better!
• they have allowed a leadership style of deferring decisions to overtake all activities
• a belief that their company and product are invincible, and that their continued success is inevitable

The future belongs to those who are fast, and yet many are structured for slow.

Are you?