What Makes Axialent Unique?

The Human Dimension of Business

Integral Approach

Productivity Killers™

Too many companies seem to be “breaking”, rather than making it. As Foster and Kaplan report in Creative Destruction, almost no company in history has managed to beat the S & P 500 for more than 15 years.

In our twelve years of experience with individual and organizational change, we have identified a set of productivity killers which are derived from an obsolete mental model--we call it unilateral control (see Shifting From Unilateral Control to Mutual Learning). In order to develop productivity enhancing behaviors, it is imperative to “upgrade” the individual and organizational culture towards a mutual learning orientation.

Some of the ineffective behaviors or Productivity Killers? driving poor results include:

•	Victim Attitude. People attribute failure to factors outside of their control, giving up power for the sake of innocence. Blame-ability trumps response-ability and finger-pointing substitutes corrective action. Employees blame bosses, “My project is late because they didn’t give me the resources I needed…” Bosses blame employees, “My staff is not proactive or competent; I need better people!” Bottom line: If you don’t see yourself as part of the problem, you can’t see yourself as part of the solution.
•	Undiscussable Issues. Conversations are polite exchanges where people discuss only “safe” fluff, while the tough core issues remain unaddressed and fester in the dark. In a hallway conversation people might comment something like “Marketing is getting too many resources, isn’t it a coincidence that its director is the Chairman’s son in law?” Bottom line: Unspeakable issues keep building underneath the table, festering relations and preventing growth. Hallway and behind the scenes conversations multiply.
•	Narcissistic Negotiation. People focus on being right, getting what they want and “beating” their “adversary” in a win-lose battle. Big egos get in the way and prevent the identification of underlying interests that can unleash creative solutions for the situation at hand. “I’d rather win over you than win with you”. Bottom line: Nobody ever asks for what they really want (interests), people ask for what they think will give them what they really want (position). It’s much more creative to bypass the latter and focus on satisfying the former.
•	Broken Commitments. People agree to fulfill requests without assessing whether they have the skills and resources to do it, then default on their commitments without any warning, explanation or apology. “Next week? Sure; I can do that… (maybe I can, maybe I can’t, we’ll just have to see…)”. Bottom line: Lack of integrity destroys effective coordination, trust and values.
•	Unethical Practices. What’s right equals what you can get away with. “Let’s cook the numbers--just a little bit. If nobody catches us, it is not wrong.” Bottom line: When integrity is routinely compromised in the pursuit of success it always results in criminal activity.

We share Jim Collins’s finding that “people are not an organization’s most important asset; the right people are an organization’s most important asset”. We believe that “right people” means people with consistent values, motivations and skills in the areas of personal effectiveness, interpersonal relationships and leadership; people who can deal with both the human and the technical dimensions of their jobs. Only when staffed with these “right” people will companies be able to cope with the complex situations they confront.

See complete list of Productivity Killers and Productivity Boosters™