Confront the Brutal Facts and Expel the Elephants

Com­pa­nies can unwit­ting­ly be a safe haven for prob­lems, per­son­al­i­ties, belief sys­tems or behav­iors that are so obvi­ous yet no one wants to address them. These ele­phants in the room are detri­men­tal to busi­ness per­for­mance if they are not purged from the organization.

Are you har­bor­ing ele­phants in your hall­ways and board­rooms? If so, con­front the bru­tal facts, iden­ti­fy them and begin method­i­cal­ly expelling them from your busi­ness. This may involve dif­fi­cult deci­sions but har­bor­ing ele­phants will only hold you back while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly frus­trat­ing tal­ent­ed employ­ees who will sim­ply come to believe that sub­stan­dard per­for­mance is acceptable.

Ask your­self, does it make sense to keep this prod­uct, per­son, belief sys­tem or behav­ior if they are real­ly not adding val­ue and con­tribut­ing to the suc­cess of your com­pa­ny? If the answer is ​“no,” why keep bar­ri­ers to progress, per­for­mance and results in place?

Iden­ti­fy The Elephants

Orga­ni­za­tion­al ele­phants can take many forms. They could be:

• A per­son who has been in the com­pa­ny far too long; it could even be one of the first employees
• Unprof­itable prod­ucts or lines of busi­ness that every­one knows are fail­ing but they do not want to elim­i­nate; it could even be the prod­uct that start­ed it all for your com­pa­ny but is no longer a hot sell­er in the market
• Process­es or sys­tems that have a loy­al fol­low­ing despite the clear lack of val­ue they con­tribute to the organization
• An acqui­si­tion or invest­ment that real­ly does not fit with your core busi­ness strategy
• Part­ner­ships or joint ven­tures that are in name only
• Sup­pli­ers that no longer add value

In every quar­ter­ly meet­ing, ensure the exec­u­tive team talks about the biggest ele­phants in the room, or as Jim Collins says ​“con­front the bru­tal facts.” Ini­tial­ly there are nev­er any, but after an awk­ward 30 sec­ond silence, there are always one or two.

What are your elephants?