There are glorious examples of companies and organisations that have got it right- both in terms of culture and focus. Sadly they are dwarfed by the companies that still behave badly, lie to not only their customers, but to their shareholders, staff AND Government auditors (Carillion for example, who manipulated the books whilst putting smaller, local sub-contracted businesses OUT of business with unreasonable terms and criminal, fraudulent actions). More often we find managers and leaders who try to expose the issues being frozen out and made to leave, even when it's clear that unless they change, their short term gains and financial rewards will eventually lead to the end of the business itself.

Worse, most companies fall somewhere in the middle and manage themselves by established practices based on easy to measure productivity gains and targets. They're not bad, just perpetuating an out of date mode of thinking.

I used to work in a Specialist Hydraulic Consultancy where productivity was measured by Quality NOT Quantity. We HAD to get the answers to the client’s questions correct – at the peril of multi-million pound industries (water companies, oil and gas companies etc) having even bigger problems with pipe bursts or un-wanted leakages and future expenditure for new equipment etc. The technical side of it often got lost on the ‘average’ client as they, clearly, hadn’t had the training or understood the concepts. In order to rectify this, we had a team who went out and gave presentations (sometimes free of charge) to the client’s who had used us many times. This was often to the junior engineers in these companies who then grew up with the concepts and ideas and the need to investigate them in detail. This belief and understanding of the necessity of the work on future projects held us in good stead and was never considered as ‘money lost’. It was the company’s belief that the more others understood what we did, the more likely they were to identify which future projects may require specialist assistance – hence the future work load was ensured (albeit with no fixed dates, of course).

As one American company said on a project in Singapore, when told to rip out $10 million worth of equipment they had just installed and replace it with something we suggested that would work – “Why should we trust you?”. Our reply. “Because we are right!” Can’t do something like that if you are trying to get out loads of little jobs (with small profit margins) when considering the implications of the a much bigger picture of ‘Overall Productivity’! All industries differ (I fully agree) but just a few thoughts of an area and industry I was involved in for over 35 years.

British Engineering was built on Quality (bridges and aqueducts from the Victorian period that are still in regular use today, for example).

Agreed, except I wasn't singling out managers, I was attacking the culture of British business. The culture and behaviour of those at the top does indeed roll down, and we get the situation of people below not only feeling the pressure to get those short term easy to measure productivity targets (that checklist mentality that blights business (private and public) in the UK), but we see the lead by example adage playing out in a very real way. The feeling that we are just numbers, not valued, not respected etc starts at the top and until the top realise that and change their ways to really lead by example, then Britain will never compete properly on the world stage.

Sadly, the government and the way it behaves (and I mean all governments of all flavours), simply reinforces that idea of "push push push" rather than "pull with me". :(

I work in professional services within Higher Education and i have a very good manager. The problem lies at the top, most managers are forced into the situation by targets set that even Superman would struggle to attain. In my experience most managers feel under a lot more pressure than the staff under them. Workforces are not valued anymore and its been like that for a while, all the so called well being at work and other half arsed programs do nothing to make staff feel any better, to quote Bob Seger " I Feel Like A Number"

Most people are in the same boat and until you get above a certain level in the management chain its worth remembering that crap only rolls downhill. I don't think the problem is with managers as such but the very higher ups, all they are interested in is money and pushing work onto lower lever staff. How do they get away with this? easy really they keep saying things are not so good, if things don't improve we might have to lose a few people etc etc.

Aiming these comments at managers is wrong, its the higher ups CEO's and the like that need to get with it.

Agreed. The issue we have here in the UK in particular is that we still have a Me Boss You Worker attitude, and too many bosses (of ALL levels) see the position as an ego stroke. The problem is the rest of the world is (and in some case HAS!) moved on and realised that a happy worker who feels valued and supported by his/her organisation is always far more productive and contributive than one who is constantly told what to do!

Listening to this had me nodding with agreement and frowning with frustration. What a difference it would make if managers encouraged and supported rather than criticise and just expect more from their staff. I know not all managers are like that but I have encountered too many who are.