Organisational Coaching – Great Organisations and Great Managers

My son and I were playing a game and despite playing well, he lost. He is quite competitive and likes to win (I wonder which parent he got that trait from?). To console him about losing, I said, "It's only a game.";

A game

The Oxford American Dictionary defined a game as a form of play or sport, esp a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.

That definition covers many activities and it is not hard to argue that by this definition business is a game and perhaps life itself is only a game. Of course, business and life are not games, because we care about the outcome.

So perhaps we should define a game as any activity or pursuit where we do not care about the outcome. A corporate game is then any corporate activity where we don't care about the outcome.

How many of your personal or corporate activities are just games?

Activities you fill in because they are fun, because someone has told you to do it, because you can.

What sort of activities have I come across here?

Meetings and reports are the most common, then we have product launches, business reviews and quality systems, and not to forget the big one, training and development.

As managers we need to stop all corporate games. It is our job to create an environment where our staff care about the outcomes they create.

So pause now, review all your activities for the next week and for each one ask yourself the question; "do I care about the outcome?".

If the answer is "no", cancel it.

If the answer is "yes", make it happen.