The modern-day practice of alchemy is only metaphorically about the search for a method to turn lead into gold.

Instead of the medieval pursuit by alchemists of a magical chemical conversion process to change one element into another, modern practitioners are focused on the magical and easy transformation of people and organizations from one level of performance to another.

Modern day, organizational alchemists are looking for great results but aren’t interested in participating in the hard work required to produce these results.

Organizational Alchemists at Work in the Modern World:

While the vocation of Alchemist is long dead, you see current practitioners at work every day.  These include:

  • Executives who talk endlessly about the need for change, yet, never put any effort into the hard work of enabling change.
  • Executives who turn their quarterly prognostications into actual numbers, offering up this weak proof that their Alchemist’s Ways work. Jim Goodnight, CEO of privately-held (by him) software firm, SAS Institute, offered  in an interview aired on 60-Minutes a number of years ago: There’s only one way that I know of to accurately hit the quarterly numbers, and that is to cook the books. Dr. Deming shared a similar perspective.

Others:

  • Leaders who use leadership training programs as easy substitutes for the hard work of developing others on their teams.
  • Firms and executives who delegate the identification of value-creating and differentiating strategies to consultants, and ignore the hard-won experience and knowledge of their own employees.
  • Management teams that talk about being market-driven and customer-focused, without actually translating those nice words into anything meaningful in terms of processes and performance standards.
  • Leaders who expect employees to be creative on command.
  • Managers and leaders who refuse to say “No,” and consistently flood their employees with a dizzying and disorienting array of projects. Everything is a priority, but nothing gets done.

First, Recognize that Alchemy Doesn’t Work:

Have you heard this before? “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth working hard for.” This goes for creating hit products, improving sales performance, developing people, improving customer service, creating high performance teams and every other single activity worth doing and worth improving in your organization. There are no shortcuts.

11 Questions to Help Keep the Alchemists In Check (or at least make them squirm):

1. How do you envision this helping us?

2. Why is this a good strategic direction?

3. What do you mean by customer-focused? And the logical follow-on: What we will look like when we’re customer focused?

4. Similar theme as the customer questions: What do you mean by market-driven?

5. If we’re going to invest our hard earned money in this training program, what are we going to do differently after the program to apply the lessons learned?

6. How are you and the other executives going to help us knock down some of the impediments to progress that we all see and know but don’t talk about?

7. What does that feedback mean? Specifically, what behavior do you want me to change?

8. How many customers did we talk to in the making of this strategy?

9. Why do you trust outside advisors more than the people that work here?

10. Which project do you want us to drop to take on your new top priority?

11. What’s your part in our team’s success?

The Bottom-line for Now:

Here’s to a year of less crap, fewer alchemists and a heck of a lot more focus and progress on the hard work of sustaining, developing and improving.

If you’re in a leadership role, ask and answer the above questions yourself before opening your mouth and exposing your Alchemist’s Ways to your team members.

If you work for an Alchemist, recognize that the above questions won’t magically transform this person. Use the questions carefully. Teach the questions to your team members and politely, firmly and consistently seek answers.

Yours in hard work,

Art

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Art develops and delivers powerful and pragmatic workshops and programs on leadership, professional development and building high performance teams. Contact Art to discuss your needs for a program or keynote.