Like our physical condition our managerial competence and capability can get out of shape. What can we do to exercise it to help us compete, grow and lead our businesses successfully? This is a challenge I am facing with a company right now.

Here are the facts:

• 15 Year Old Company (was a roll-up of 3 previous companies)
• Flat Revenues and Profits for 10 years
• Market Served is Growing 20+ percent annually
• Average Management Team Tenure is 20+ years
• Words Spoken Say “We Want to Grow”
• The Pervasent Belief is “It is a Sales Problem”

I think the issue is Managerial flabbiness, or the inability to apply managerial energy, creativity and brainpower to think differently or to see situations from different perspectives. Seeing and thinking differently might lead to new ideas, new actions or God forbid CHANGE.

Everyone is comfortable, why rock the boat? The owner wants to grow aggressively but his leadership team is not as motivated. He sees the benefits of the growth, but others do not. He has the dissonance (tension) of seeing the gap between where he is and where he wants to be.

When most of us have that dissonance we usually get motivated to action, notice I said usually. Sometimes the perceived effort outweighs the dissonance and it is easier to keep on “doing what we have always done.”

My search is on for how to be an effective catalyst to help this companies management start to exercise their management muscle to take advantage of the market opportunity.

Got ideas, resources, stories or examples, leave me a comment, I would appreciate your help.

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