Africa Business Communities

Odimbite Odimbite: Executive Nonchalance as a Contagious Virus

Have you ever wondered why in some organizations, staff shows indifference as to whether an action is done or not done at all? Executive nonchalance is a state of apathy and executives feel it’s not their business to passionately do the business of the company. Decisions are stored up and not taken until either too late or last minute after pushing them around from one table to another. When decisions are made, these executives rarely push to have the decision properly executed. They welcome all manner of excuses to permit non-execution or delay the execution.

Causes of Executive Nonchalance

Executives who should drive performance lay back and seem disinterested in what the organization is doing. The primary reason for executive nonchalance is a culture of continuous non-execution that pervades the entire organization. Fantastic strategies are developed, solid processes are crafted and wonderful performance agreements are drawn up but when it comes to acting, doing, implementing and making it work, excuses as to why it can’t be done are generated at an alarming rate. It appears there is a said agreement amongst the executives that this is another waste of efforts so why bother to try? Even though wonderful goals are set, yet the doing aspect is lacking. The executives can almost bet themselves that once a new programme is to be introduced, it won’t work despite how robust it appears at the presentation meeting.

In business, execution is the hallmark of a great enterprise. These executives see no point in exerting themselves beyond the usual as any concerted efforts to make a huge difference is met with frustration. Newcomers to the organization feel energized but once they make a few deft moves to change things, the inertia to move is greater than the zeal of the accomplishment. With the passage of time, they feel frustrated, settle for the real culture on ground or take a bow so as to maintain their market values.

Another reason for executive nonchalance is inability to measure, balance input-output outcomes and provide quality feedback. Once measurements aren’t done, performance drops. Everyone tends to drop the ball at crucial times. It is a maxim that people behave the way they are measured. When measurement parameters are faulty, inadequate or poorly done, certainly performance will drop. Results obtained ought to be balanced with input variables. Imbalances can occur. Here the effort exerted to generate an output is far more than the result seen, in which case there will be no drive to do more or do it at all. If a salesman is assigned a territory and the effort made to generate a dollar sale consistently outweighs the unit sales captured, there will be disincentive to continue to drive sales in the medium and long term. In some cases, nonchalance results from poor feedback, inadequate feedback or no feedback at all from a direct supervisor.

Executives’ inherited issues may cause nonchalance also. When an executive is assigned a responsibility with a handful of staff, the real issue may be having unskilled, unqualified and untrained personnel who can’t run at the new wavelength. The executive is challenged by the poor quality of the competence pool and thus is hampered from operating at his optimum level of performance. It can be downright frustrating to inherit or have staff who the executive feels aren’t tooled to deliver the right results. This often arises due to wrong hiring decisions, poor trainings done for the staff pool, wrong staff in wrong roles and age of the workforce. Aging workforces definitely seek more security than an agile workforce and thus take more time in ensuring their future is protected than the job being done well. The habit of risk-taking becomes hindered due to experience and age of these staff. The real issue here is that the executive cannot just replace these staff due to political, social, moral or economic considerations.

The organization may play safe because the cost of replacement of staff is way too high or there are political issues that will arise when this staff is thrown out of jobs. The private and public outcry from families and unions may frustrate plans to make progress. So, business decisions have to be made. The ease of making the business decision that can stimulate executive commitment to seamless execution of strategies, work processes and performance agreements starts after a thorough analysis and appropriate decision criteria.

Some CEOs also face this challenge that their executives aren’t performing and the business is making average returns. This requires a will to do what is needed to change the tempo of the game and sometimes hard and tough decisions have to be made to introduce a culture of execution.

Executive nonchalance is a disease state that ravages some top executives and makes them ineffective in truly performing at top levels of organizational expectations. It’s a tough call and the entire business must understand the cause of the nonchalance and make serious decisions to address the issues so that the organization can become a truly executing one where every one at each level is excited to do their roles in a prompt manner.

Odimbite Odimbite is Co-Founder, Metrodelight Foods Limited, Nigeria

 

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