Organisational Coaching

Sports stars are encouraged to play to their strengths. Companies are similarly encouraged to "stick to their knitting" and focus on their "core competencies". We can mistakenly carry that advice over to managers and tell them as well to play to their strengths. Except with managers and business owners there is a trap - Our strengths become our weaknesses.

This story is an amalgam of three actual companies.

Joseph was a pretty good programmer. OK, let's be honest, he was brilliant. One of the best in the world. He loved getting behind the keyboard and cranking out code for clients or just his own enjoyment. Over time he built a reputation with corporates throughout Asia as the best for logistics and supply chain. His algorithms were innovative and gave corporations large savings in transportation and logistics costs.

Joseph realised that the market for this type of service was huge and that he was writing similar programs for all his clients. This inspired the idea of packaging these libraries as modules and selling to other developers to include in their solutions.

So in 2000, he established Innovative Logistics and started selling his libraries. While initial demand was slow, business grew consistently. In four years he was running a multi million dollar business with a staff of 15.

As with all stories, things started to go wrong.

The first sign was high staff turnover, especially with the software architects and developers. They were never up to Joseph's exacting standards. Unfortunately this was true as Joseph was a better programmer. It was always faster for Joseph to do the work himself.

The second sign was cash flow problems. Joseph never appreciated the value of an accountant and so had unskilled admin staff manage the finance. They did this quite diligently in their unskilled way.

The third sign was customer satisfaction. In the early days, customers loved him. Faster, more innovative and higher quality than anything they could do themselves or buy from anyone else. They didn't mind not knowing when releases would come and they adapted to the surprising new features that turned up.

As the company grew, the new features were less innovative, delivered later and sometimes unreliable. Always one to set his own agenda Joseph was annoyed when customers started demanding a roadmap, regular releases, guaranteed turnaround.

The turning point happened late one night in the office. Joseph was working at a furious pace in his room when Angie, his trusted lieutenant and the second company director sat down in front of him.

"What's up?", enquired Joseph.

"I have had enough."

Angie's voice had that shut-up and listen edge to it.

"The staff have had enough! The customers have had enough! There are three people in this room and I'm not leaving till one of them resigns."

All Joseph could muster is, "Huh?"

"Yes, three people. Me, Joseph the manager and Joseph the programmer. And I have to say that Joseph the manager is doing a lousy job and Joseph the programmer is pretty poor. So who's going?"

It was a long night and Joseph didn't finish his code. In the end he took the courageous decision to fire Joseph the programmer.

Joseph realised that his strength, his programming skills, had become his weakness.

This story is both fictional and true. By changing the names, company and industry it become the biography of several business owners I know personally. In most cases the owners took the same decision as Joseph. In one case they employed a manager. In all cases, either the owner-the-expert or the owner-the-manager was fired.