MIDDLE MANAGERS

Too many times, the person who says, "Yes, Sir," gets promoted to manager. Too few times, the person who says, "This may not work," gets promoted to manager.

We are not promoting the people who are willing to give bad news to the upper management.

Therefore, the upper management is not getting the bad new until there is a huge crises.

The Gulf oil spill is an example of this. The companies knew at the lower levels that something, including the concrete formula, was wrong. They did not communicate that knowledge to the people who were actually making the decisions. Almost always this problem stems from a corporate culture of "we can do this".

"We can do this" is a way to get great things done. It is also a way to cause great harm by ignoring the voices that say "there might be a problem".

Middle managers almost certainly knew that mortgage paperwork was being done wrong. Middle managers almost certainly knew that some mortgages being sold were going to people who could not pay the mortgages.

However, the companies they worked for rewarded cost savings and profits. There was no reward for pointing out possible future problems.

Companies that run "full speed ahead" are risking a fatal crash.

Organizations MUST reward those people who bring possible problems to the attention of upper management. Until this happens, we will have more and more crises caused by the need to keep the profits flowing, no matter the future cost.