What is the Cost of a Nincompoop?

A nincompoop is someone who is grossly inept. They can be categorized as five-figures, six-figures … up to ten-figures or more depending upon how much they cost the organization in a year, or over their career.

Ironically, Nincompoops have an uncanny way of surviving by flying below the radar, shifting blame or somehow gaining tenure. Their negative contribution can be measured in mistakes, customer dissatisfaction, lost management time, lowering the bar for others, defects, rework, good people who leave in frustration, etc. Everyone knows who they are but somehow, year after year, they go on.

You may find them at all levels. Their damage only compounds the higher they are in the organization. (Nincompoops in management tend to hire "Nincompods" in their own image, creating a "Nincompile.")


Is Shooting Nincompoops the Next Management Breakthrough?
Management theory has no lack of quality initiatives and approaches for efficiency and effectiveness. These are great for squeezing out the extra five percent. But, how much would be gained if we simply got rid of the nincompoops?

Let me illustrate. For the sake of discussion we will categorize employees at four levels of performance:

• Leaders: Leaders are those who not only perform with excellence, but inspire others to perform well. They are not necessarily managers.
• Competent Core: The Competent Core are those good soldiers who put in a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. They do what is expected with minimal errors.
• Laggards: Laggards are going to do the minimum at the last minute. They get it done, usually, but require follow up, reminders and greater accountability. It may be they lack talent, but more likely, they really just haven’t bought into the vision. “It’s a job.”
• Nincompoops: Nincompoops may be obstructionists or simply incompetent. Nincompoops ARE leaders, however. They are taking the company and other employees in a negative direction. As much as they play innocent, they usually know exactly what they are doing, and are masters at remaining invisible.

This can all be reduced to a formula. Total output is simply a function of the combined output of the four categories.

Total Output = Output of Leaders + Competent Core + Laggards + Nincompoops
Let’s make some assumptions and assign a productivity multiplier to each of the groups. How you measure productivity is unique to your situation, but for illustration, the table below assumes that if you give a Leader $1 (inputs), they will add value and you will receive back $1.50. With the Competent Core you will receive $1.25. Laggards require additional supervision, so you only receive $.60 back. With Nincompoops, you’ve lost your dollar.

Performance WITH Nincompoops

While the Units of Resources managed and the Value Added Effectiveness Multipliers are hypothetical, they do illustrate a valuable point. Anything we can do to increase the number of leaders and raise the Value Added Effectiveness Multipliers will increase total productivity.

Since, in the table above the Nincompoops screw up 100% of what they touch, anything we can do to reduce the number of Nincompoops and what they control will also increase output. In the example, if you did nothing but eliminate the Nincompoops and replace them with Laggards, you could increase output by 23.5% as demonstrated in the table below. (While not shown, you would probably also see a spike in the Value Added Effectiveness Multipliers of the other groups, because they would spend less time re-working the Nincompoops' defects.)

(110.5 units – 89.5 units) / 89.5 units = 23.5%

Performance WITHOUT Nincompoops

Can you name anything else that can offer such a return for so little effort in such a short period of time?

Implications for Management
When an organization introduces performance measurement and management it brings visibility and accountability. The new information helps the company to target and prioritize key initiatives. A natural outcome is change, and change management.

In the face of change, Nincompoops sink to a new low, because they can be expected to obstruct or mismanage anything they touch. Passive/aggressive people by nature, they effectively sabotage the new direction while hiding behind a veil of innocence or ignorance.

In the face of change, senior executives have three key responsibilities:

• Provide the shared vision that overrides individual interests
• Provide the “burning platform” that makes the “nest” no longer safe
• Provide the executive mandate that says, “Get on the bus, or get under it.”

Of course, the mandate is only as strong as how well it is enforced. It is not enough for executive sponsors to say the words. They must be prepared to lop off some heads if necessary. Why not the Nincompoops?

It may seem harsh, but if we borrow an example from professional sports, the coach is responsible for the performance of the team. An underperforming player might be tolerated for a time, but if not dealt with, at some point the coach is deemed to be the Nincompoop.

Executives: Only You Can Shoot a Nincompoop!
Much of quality and productivity improvement can be delegated to project champions and project managers. What these people cannot do, and what will destroy their best efforts, are Nincompoops. The extent to which senior management tolerates maladaptive behavior is the extent to which change initiatives will fail.

Shooting Nincompoops remains the sole domain of the executive and in this they must not fail. The productivity arguments are compelling, as well as the cultural rewards.

Executives, the garden of human capital must be appropriately nurtured and part of this is pulling the weeds. Recognize the Nincompoops for what they are and what they do. They seldom change. Take the appropriate actions and earn the respect of everyone else in the organization.

The Three Essentials for Driving Change

In The Art of War, Sun Tzu writes, “Regard your soldiers as your children and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look upon them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death.” While organizational change rarely demands the ultimate sacrifice, great leaders understand that it can crush or lift the human spirit. As King Solomon wrote, “Where there is no vision the people perish.” (Prov. 28:19 KJV).

Most people actually support change—as long as someone else is doing the changing. The fact is that unless people collectively perceive a threat; unless they individually believe in a larger mission; unless they personally understand the sacrifices to be made, they will rarely lend their full support.

There are “Three Essentials” for mobilizing change across organizational lines. Until these are present and communicated by the senior executive, change agents will die a lonely death on a distant hill. These three essentials are a Burning Platform, a Shared Vision, and an Executive Mandate.

Burning Platform

Fire is one of the greatest threats to those who work on offshore platforms. Several miles from land, when fire breaks out at sea, people must choose between extinguishing the flames and swimming with the sharks. It does not matter how well they get along; on a burning platform they have a collective problem they must solve.

Leaders wishing to get their organization moving must identify a crisis. They may even have to manufacture one. The threat must be real, immediate, and affect each associate personally.

Shared Vision

The Burning Platform may get people moving but they have to converge on something positive. There must be a Promised Land that makes crossing the desert of change worthwhile. Otherwise, they are operating in crisis, motivated by fear. This is neither constructive nor sustainable in the long term.

Since people have what’s in it for me? written on their foreheads, the Shared Vision must hold something for all stakeholders. There are three important elements to an effective Shared Vision:

1. The Shared Vision must offer a significant financial win. Corporations have an obligation to shareholders to give them a return on investment. Talking about widgets per hour or how much better people will “feel,” while perhaps important, rarely strikes a chord with investors.

2. The Shared Vision must solve an organizational pain point felt by all. It is a mistake for leaders to appeal to the masses by speaking only in aggregate financial terms that benefit someone else. By addressing operational pain caused by ineffective and inefficient processes, policies, or practices, management communicates to their associates that they are in touch with real problems.

3. The Shared Vision must create a competitive advantage that protects against short-sighted solutions. The Shared Vision becomes that point on the horizon toward which all boats may steer while making the course corrections for their individual situation.

Executive Mandate

Leadership begins and ends with the sponsorship of a high-ranking senior executive. An Executive Mandate will describe what is expected and establish that non-compliance is not an option.

To create and communicate an Executive Mandate, the executive sponsor must:

1. Declare a Strategic Intent: Strategic intent is a high-level statement of where a company is going and how it intends to get there. Strategic intent helps others align their actions with the larger strategy.

2. Empower a Guiding Coalition of Senior Executives: A wise CEO will take a first cut at the Burning Platform, Shared Vision, and the Executive Mandate. He or she will then organize a cross-functional coalition of executives to flesh out the details. This communicates the issues and gives senior executives a chance to put their personal stamp on the strategic direction.

The Guiding Coalition must reach consensus about where the organization is and where it is going. Remember that consensus does not mean 100% agreement. It means that each member agrees to publicly support the decision of the group regardless of personal opinions.

3. Mandate a Governance Model: Linking strategy to execution requires governance at the executive, functional, and project level. There must be a forum for vetting and fact-based decision making. There must be a path of escalation all the way to the CEO for making decisions and resolving disagreement.

4. Commission and Focus Resources: People and resources must have permission to spend time on the change effort. Subject matter experts and project team members must not be put in the position of defying an immediate supervisor in order to participate.

5. Set and Enforce Standards: The senior executive must establish and communicate standards of performance and participation. They must also be willing to deal with obstructionists and ineffective leaders. There are few things more frustrating, or that will kill a change initiative faster, than a CEO who says the words but is not willing to follow up with consequences for those who defy the mandate.

In The Art of War, Sun Tzu further writes, “The victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.” The seasoned executive will spend time in counsel with a guiding coalition of committed leaders. Only when they have defined the Three Essentials and are prepared to personally enforce participation are they ready to ask others to make the sacrifices that effective change requires.

What’s Your Company’s IQ (Innovation Quotient©)?

Your industry is changing. There are enormous pressures to develop new products, cut costs, reengineer processes, and segment the value and supply chains based upon complex and sustainable customer and supplier relationships. Success in the past is no guarantee of success in the future. Considering these developments, do associates view innovation and change as a source of job security or a reason for mutiny?

Innovation (as discussed here) does not refer to Research and Development. It refers to the cultural ability to align associates and draw from their diverse views to form creative concepts and solutions. It refers to those associates’ willingness to participate in and support those solutions. This competence can be defined and measured as a company’s Innovation Quotient© (IQ).

The “Innovation Gap©” occurs when some are making bold and necessary choices while others are protecting fiefdoms or clinging to the past. This cultural clash creates delays and waste, erodes value, and threatens survival.

An organization’s “IQ” has four perspectives that can be remembered by the acronym IDEA©:

Insight refers to the company’s internal and external scanning skills.

Decision Making speed and accuracy depends upon people’s knowledge and empowerment.

Engagement & Execution is best accomplished by enrolling people in their own solutions.

Alignment with Strategy is achieved through cascaded objectives, measures & initiatives aligning four functions of performance: Strategy, Financial Planning, Business Execution and Operational Excellence.

Based on these perspectives, if we were to measure where a company fell on the spectrum of innovation, it could be described by one of four innovation profiles:

Ships Adrift float on past success and are poorly positioned to respond to threats or opportunities.

Cruise Ships have a few individuals setting direction and making course adjustments.  The remainder are “Intellectual Passengers.” Change is presented like a destination brochure rather than a roadmap for associates to follow.

Merchant Marine empower associates to effectively and efficiently deliver existing services to existing customers, having ownership and making course corrections

Navigators are those innovating new products, markets, and ways of doing business

The Innovation Gap© gap accounts for the resistance that causes many change initiatives to fail.  Closing the gap is more than a feel-good experience.  When a company is changing its business model, survival can depend upon it.

Apply the Six Sigma DMAIC method to close the Innovation Gap©.

Define: Define the attributes of the four IDEA perspectives: Insight, Decision Making, Engagement & Execution, and Alignment with Strategy.

Measure: Set specific examples of each attribute that might represent the behavior expected from a Ship Adrift, a Cruise Ship, the Merchant Marine, and from Navigators. Think of specific examples from the four functions of performance: Strategy, Financial Planning, Business Execution, and Operational Excellence. Assess and compare Senior Executives, Middle Management, and line supervisors and their organizations.

Analyze: Compare the three groups, noting gaps and exploring root causes. Think in terms of the impact a specific change initiative may have and what corrective actions are appropriate.

Improve: Set objectives, measures, and performance scorecards to address and close gaps.

Control: Set acceptable standards of behavior for each of the attributes. Using working teams from Strategy, Financial Planning, Business Execution, and Operational Excellence, along with the internal customers of these groups, develop specific examples for each attribute that represents Unacceptable, Acceptable but Average, and Exemplary performance. Also, define response plans for attributes that are out of control.

Understanding your company’s Innovation Quotient and identifying its Innovation Gap is critical to success and growth.  The process of defining its attributes, setting standards, and establishing controls has enormous cultural impact. Associates themselves are setting the standards and determining how they will be enforced.  By identifying the affected areas before a change initiative gaps in understanding, incentives, and alignment can be isolated and corrected before the ship is in the storm.