Donald Keough a former President of Coca Cola wrote a book called the 10 Commandments for Business Failure, Portfolio Books, 2008. The numbers are correct in 2008 as well they will be in 3008. The second 5 commands are:

1. Don’t Take Time to Think

2.. Put All Your Faith in Experts and Consultants

3. Love Your Bureaucracy

4. Send Mixed Messages

5. Be Afraid of the Future

6. Lose Your Passion for Work – for Life

Coca-Cola is a large organization and similar to large organizations, it does not take long before running into many of the commandments. Not all of them are wrong, but to a degree they can be. Asking consultants their opinions can be a very a good thing, not making a decision based on your understanding of the business is not a good thing. Consultants have two purposes – one to give an understanding to the problem and second to call for more research, because there rarely is a perfect answer and to give them more consulting work.

Bureaucracy has a valid role to play, however if the procedures need to do something very basic become cumbersome, and they can be, something needs to change. Are the rules and procedures helping enhance the customer relationship or hindering it?

Many organizations send mixed messages, they suggest one action for all to follow and then reward people for other types of actions. Eventually everyone will determine, what behaviours the company rewards is the actions the company will receive.

Lose your passion for work and life can be the most serious of the commandments. You work in the industry for a reason. The industry has ebbs and flows and over the years you have developed relationships in it and believe the industry makes the world a better place. For many years, you have consider how to enhance your company and when you lose your passion, there are two choices one re find it or move to something you are passionate about.

The above commandments are more internal than external, which is why reading or listening to management’s views is important. Do they follow some or more of the commandments? What is their focus?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time  – to raising questions