branded for life

Our senior management is clueless about many problems that are happening internally and with customers. We feel that they don’t care. What can we regular staff do?

Viva La Revolution! No. But short of you taking over to make a change yourselves the power and control remains in the hands of senior management. However, you do have the element of heat and pressure to influence the big bosses. Often, senior management refers back to their direct assistants and subordinates to start or to complete certain projects. These are windows of opportunities to voice your concerns; as long as the topic of discussion is relevant to the burning subject you have been desperately waiting to address. Otherwise, it will backfire at you for ‘complaining’ and for being off-topic. Many chairpersons have PR, Marketing, Strategy or their office boy write their own speeches or opening letters for them. Such incidents also give whoever is responsible for writing a chance to influence.

Another approach is to create pressure from the outside. If you’re involved in Business Inelegance or Marketing in general and you have access to research design, sneak a few questions in the next customer survey that can address the problems you see. Sometimes, senior management would listen to customers or to consultants but not to their own staff. It’s quite common, actually. If all fails, tell senior management about ‘Undercover Boss’, a new reality show by CBS where the big chief disguises himself/herself as a temp to find out how their business is run on the other side of the company. Maybe that will inspire them…and that’s just my two cents.

read what others have read

• two cents: HR, we have a problem
• two cents: born to email
• two cents: social media in developing countries