Companies often make a number of recurring mistakes in their business operations that can turn detrimental during a merger, divestiture, or acquisition. But most of these mistakes are usually sneaky and sneaky; Scapegoats are blamed, people are fired, and decision makers walk away unscathed.
Looking at last year's withdrawal from Afghanistan and Russia's most recent attack on Ukraine, you can see errors in real time on the public screen. And while the blame game can still draw our attention away from them, both events are worth using as teachable moments.
The three mistakes I am referring to are moving with inadequate intelligence; make false assumptions; and focus on blame instead of causal analysis. (I've been on the wrong side of the latter myself and I get it.)
Afghanistan and insufficient intelligence
Before the Biden administration took office, it had two big problems: one known and one unknown. Known issue: The Trump administration aggressively blocked him from briefings on ongoing operations. The unknown problem: Virtually all third-party support had been withdrawn from the area, leaving the Afghan army unable to support itself.
The Biden administration lacked the information it needed to confirm a decision it had made (and key players in the region warned that the Afghan military was in trouble). If the Biden team had taken the time to understand the problem, they could have mitigated it and could have attributed the delay to the previous administration's lack of adequate preparation. By deciding to go ahead without the proper information, he correctly appropriated the messy outcome.
It reminds me of HP's acquisition of Autonomy. Before the acquisition, HP did not have enough information to make a measured decision (and the CFO at the time was not on board). But HP executives felt the need to move on, and as a result, the move failed spectacularly.
The Autonomy acquisition stands in contrast to Dell's purchase of EMC, which should have been much more difficult to do, given EMC's size. Dell's approach was to make informed decisions, and it soon changed to deploying teams capable of defining all the related issues and developing a successful plan to achieve the merger.
Russia and Ukraine: lack of controls
Facebook and Russia have similar leadership structures, with senior executives who cannot be removed and who act tactically and wrongly on important decisions. I first saw this at IBM in the late 1980s: top executives isolated themselves, made catastrophic decisions, IBM had its first unplanned CEO firing. Many of Facebook's mistakes in recent years can be attributed to CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a leadership structure that lacks checks and balances. This is how Russia is headed now.
When a great deal of power resides in one person, that person is more likely to make catastrophic avoidable mistakes, as appears to be the invasion of Ukraine. The typical response is to publicly fire subordinates and blame them for the problems caused by the leader of the country (or company). This results in a cascading problem: those released are often those who disagreed with the decision, making it more likely that future decisions will also be catastrophic.
Proper controls are important at all levels of company management, especially at the top, because mistakes at this level are more likely to be catastrophic. Intel's leadership under Brian Krzanich was like that, but the company's board was eventually able to push him out. Now, Pat Gelsinger is busy solving problems that should never have existed in the first place. That kind of option doesn't seem possible at Facebook (or in Russia), suggesting that both have an almost certain future.
To blame
We often focus too much on blame. Leaders who can be good at corporate politics are often very good at blaming others for their mistakes. I once reported on a senior vice president of sales, one of the most powerful people in my company, who hired salespeople who didn't understand the market or the products they were selling. He leaked my report to a competitor, accused me of leaking it, and took aggressive action to get me fired. Fortunately, he had anticipated a leak, and with the help of others in the company, I was able to identify the VP of Sales himself as the problem. He ended up going to work for the competitor he leaked the report to. But the main issue was never resolved, which contributed to the eventual failure of my division.
It's easy for people to shift blame when the focus is on blame and not analysis. It is essential first to understand what is causing a problem before proposing and especially implementing a solution. Otherwise, it will cause more damage and the problem may reoccur.
The war in Ukraine highlighted three problems that Russia seemed unaware of. First, the Russian people do not support the war, which reduces military effectiveness and creates significant internal operational efficiency problems. Second, the Russian military is in poor condition, due to poor quality components like tires. Third, to be successful, the operation had to be completed within days to avoid a global backlash. But taking cities in days with current technology is not possible unless you kill or suppress their populations, which was not feasible given the potential for NATO to enter the fray.
In short: In business operations, inadequate intelligence, a lack of control over decision makers, and an excessive focus on blame (instead of causal analysis) can ensure the failure of any project, whether it is a product failure or Zune (Microsoft's attempt to combat the iPod), or a war like the one we see in Ukraine.
Failure can be avoided, but only if you focus on the merits of decisions, and you can't do that without understanding the information about a decision, making sure the person making the decision is well-informed, and focusing more on learning from mistakes. than in finding scapegoats. This is something to keep in mind when watching the news.
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