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Your Creativity vs the Corporate Life Cycle – Part 3

(See also Part 1 and Part 2 of this series)

Stage Four – The company is in a long term decline

The only reason a creative person should be joining a company in a long term decline is if he or she is being hired to turn the situation around. It is a noble goal, but a successful conclusion is unlikely for the following six reasons.

1. The company is in a decline because management is unable to deal with change.
2. Management and the Board of Directors are afraid of anything they don’t understand.
3. Management has probably made some major mistakes which they are not willing to discuss with you.
4. They are in a constant state of indecision and rarely follow through on decisions made or promises made.
5. They will want you to make things better without changing any of the corporate customs, upsetting secret agreements, and you must absolutely not upset anyone anywhere in the process of getting things squared around.
6. The finally and most damning point, they probably pay more attention to rumors than they do to actual pro-survival activities.

There are more reasons and some of you can rattle them off without notes, but I think these cover the primary obstacles that a creative person will face in a declining company.

In most companies, a creative person will stand out and may become the butt of envious comments from those who feel threatened. In this company, you as a creative person will post a threat to management just by being there because if you do your job, all of their mistakes will eventually be uncovered. The only people who welcome your presence will not be in a position to support you when rumors start flying.

Here is one scenario: You are hired as top management and the Board show great signs of relief that you are on board to save them from their past follies.

After meeting with enough key employees to get a sense of the emergencies that must be addressed immediately, you call a meeting of the employees and you outline a sensible set of steps to give them workable targets for improving conditions in the next 90 days. The employees are enthusiastic and you start getting positive feedback from customers in a relatively short time.

About the third week, one of the Board Members sidles into your office and hesitantly suggests that you are moving too fast. This is when you realize that you missed something in the job
interview…

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