Dinosaurs are alive and well and living in Britain but, unless they do some quick figuring out, they are destined to suffer a similar fate to their scaly predecessors! The other day a colleague told me how she’d asked a member of the admin team to update a marketing contact list. That’s when the fun began!
It involved emailing all team members with a file of existing domain names and emails, and asking them to check, update and add to the list. However, only one member of the workforce replied to the generic email. No real surprises there! It’s called ‘I’m too busy’ syndrome, or the ‘it’s not at the top of my list because I don’t understand the importance of what you’re asking me to do!” virus! It only becomes truly important when senior managers make it a three line whip.
But that can’t happen everyday and, somewhere along the line, that wonderful word called ‘initiative’ has to kick in!
What happens next truly defines the person charged with completing the task. No one responded. Some justify their failure and give you 20 reasons as to why they didn’t come through with the goods. But, a glass half full person will find another way to complete the task.
In this instance this was the conversation:
“Only one person replied.”
“OK, did you fix up 10 minute one to one meetings with each member of staff – as suggested – and tackle them face to face? That way they can’t get away.”
“No, I have no authority and they don’t take me seriously. What’s the point?”
Long explanation as why such meetings will probably produce a result and that ‘lack of authority’ wasn’t really the issue.
“Anyway, marketing’s not my job.”
I felt my blood start to boil when I heard that last comment. Those are the words of someone who has absolutely no comprehension of what is happening in the business world and wider economy. Networking, new business, marketing and PR is EVERYBODY’S job!
You might not have all the skills required to holistically deliver an entire solution, however, if someone asks you to get involved with some aspect of marketing, to which you can make a valuable contribution – like leading the cleansing of a mailing list – then boy you’d better get with the programme or you’ll be next on the redundancy list.
‘Not my job syndrome’ has no place in modern business. Demarcation lines are a thing of the past because businesses need people who have ‘can do’ attitudes and are capable of multi skilling.
If you have individuals who are willing to change, to learn new things, that’s great because you have something you can work with, however, if you have a dyed in the wool individual who is dogmatic and unable to learn new tricks, the answer’s simple……manage them out of the business and give their job to one of the thousands of young unemployed who’d kill for a chance!
There’s an economic war out there, everyone needs to be running at 100%