Part IV in the Executive Coaching Series

Insanity: Hiring People and Not Utilizing Them

Did you ever hire a person to do one job and have them do another job? It is very destabilizing to the person and the organization.
It is made worse if the person is trained to do a job and then later plugged in somewhere else. A very bad case of this is called "musical chairs". It's death for an organization. In fact, a very covertly hostile person I knew once kept moving people around in her division. The person hired to do the marketing was working in production. The frustration level in the office was quite palpable, but no one detected the root of it. Moving people around destabilizes them. Hiring them, training them properly and then letting them do their jobs works wonders for competence and stability.

I've mentioned to many of you that production is the basis of morale. Productive people are happier! It goes against some of the modern thinking about work/life balance, but it is true. Many of you have read the study about the life span of executives who retire: 33 months! They stopped being productive. No more "game"! So keep productive, and keep your people productive in the jobs they were trained to do.

You will all be happier!