Through the ages the tale of the Grecian Hero JASON’s voyage to recover the Golden Fleece has many parallels to today’s executive management. Of the most striking is the Syren’s song. **
And what is today’s Golden Fleece? It is the Syren’s song called Success.
Success lulls us into the blindness of rejecting the changing tides. The Syrens around you sing songs of praise . The accolades fly. Confidence in uninterrupted success grows as each minion exalts you even higher. You forget the contributors whose have toiled in the shadows to catapult you to the top. You lavish onto those who will profit from the spill of your success.
In business it is all too clear. The management of successful enterprises begin to “own” the processes that brought their firms to the top. They claim them as their own. Rather than taking pride in choosing the advisors whose heads were focused on combating competition, they listen to those who would perpetuate only what has been done before. Kingdoms within their own companies build based on “metrics”. Staffs become loyal to the Vice President that runs their department.
Protect the “Castle Keep” becomes the byword.
Yet slowly the company becomes laden with extra non-income functions. Systems to protect the core from the occasional mistake are installed and often cost more than the mistake. Payroll is doubled. Costs rise. Prices are increased and the company bounces from profit to loss and back and forth. Yet the Song of Success continues to mesmerize until…
A competitor appears. The industry norm becomes the industry white elephant. Another company with new processes does what cannot be done. How many times have you heard “they won’t last”? But they do and grab significant market share.
After 45 years of building successes we are tuned to the signs of the Syrens song. We see the firms build department heads clamoring for more power and budget. We see the new “experts” who counsel after the fact. We see the metric reports that cannot anticipate the change in public fashion. When advice is discarded, we watch as new competitors eat away at market share and use those successes to build a new leadership position.
We receive information on Lawyer Advertising in more than 62 cities daily. Ours is the finger on the pulse of change. We hear daily what gets the public the “like” a Lawyer and the Advertisements. We measure the success of each new process. We reorganize your firm to meet the challenge of rising costs. We advise what our Lawyer clients should do next. Because our ears ignore to the enticing sounds of accolades, we deliver the Golden Fleece day in and day out. What are you listening to…the Syren’s Song?
Richard Sackett / CEO / Group Matrix
** In Greek Mythology Jason and his crew, the Argonauts, were charged with recovering the Golden Fleece, a powerful cloth of great value. Along the way the boat passing an island on which beautiful women sing a song that mesmerizes the crew and entices them to sail into the rocks. Jason plugs his ears and lashes himself to the mast to save the day. See Jason and the Argonauts.
