The Honeymoon is Over

Well, the big day has come and gone. Jen and I got married this summer and enjoyed a wonderful summer honeymoon in Greece and Israel. Unfortunately while we were gone the world didn’t slow down much.

On my return a fascinating corporate dilemma came across my desk. A colleague in one of the world’s biggest banks called to ask for some advice. It seems that a young, very promising, recently promoted VP was having problems keeping his affairs in order. While the woman whom this young man reported to was reprimanding him on how he organized his office, she pulled a random crumpled piece of paper out of a stack of papers that was sitting on his desk. When she straightened the paper out she was horrified to discover that it was a check from the IRS. It was a check for 14 million dollars. No joke! 14 million dollars! When she questioned the young man about the check he kept responding with, “I was going to get to it, I was going to get to it.” She continued to press him about the over sight and he finally broke down and said, “At least I sent along the check for 7 million dollars.”

“What check for 7 million dollars?”
“The one that came after this one.”
“Where did you send it?”
“I sent it to John in the Manhattan office.”
“John who?”
”I forget, it was inner-officed to accounting."

I can go into much more detail but it just gets uglier and uglier. All along the way this young VP just kept saying, ‘I was going to get to it, I was going to get to it.” I don’t think I need to share much more but to say the obvious. By the end of the day the young executive was escorted out of the building by security never to enter the building again.

Do you think this is a fluke? An anomaly? An urban legend? Think again. Although hopefully for not the amount mentioned here, this is happening in the vast majority of offices all around the world every day of the week. It is the 900 pound gorilla in the management of your operations which people turn a blind eye to. Things drop through the slats regularly and it is adversely affecting your company’s bottom line and share holder’s value. How do you improve individual employee’s performance? This requires leadership. And the most fundamental principle in leadership development is “role modeling”. Your senior leadership must set the benchmark for effective habits and productive behavior. An Integra Workshop may be just what your company needs to make sure your most important asset, your people, are performing to their optimum potential and able to enjoy a reasonable work/life balance.