“Fake Work”, Brent D. Peterson, Gaylan W. Nielson; Simon Spotlight Entertainment (Simon and Schuster), 2009.

The premise of “Fake Work” is that people, managers, executives, and organizations are busier than ever, but getting nothing done. Here is a quote from “Fake Work”:

Causes of Fake Work Cultures

“Many factors help create fake-work cultures. Many corporate processes, like decision-making, change management, communication, and operations are rife with fake work. But leadership and management are the standard-bearers for fake-work cultures. Below are some common characteristics of fake-work cultures:

1. Autocratic leaders. Autocratic leaders have launched entire ships of fake-work cultures….
2. Cavalier leaders. ….When they fail to establish the environment for success and aid alignment and execution, they enable the wrong behaviors.
3. Unclear business and strategic plans. Writing and communicating strategic plans is worthless if employees remain clueless about strategic direction….
4. A lack of clear company values. Values are the navigational stars in a company….
5. Being removed from the customer. Cultures that don’t stay close to customer needs create fake work by guessing incorrectly about those needs…..
6. Short-sighted thinking…. Every other strategy becomes a victim to short-term profits….
7. Arrogance and complacency. Some companies don’t imagine that competition will ever catch up. Those companies are monuments to fake work because they don’t listen to their employees, their customers, and the trends in the marketplace.
8. A constant influx of new systems, structures, and procedures…. In an effort to improve effectiveness, companies target process change without ensuring that they are linked to the business goals…..
9. Old-school performance management processes. In most companies, the way they manage, review, and reward performance is totally ineffective….
10. Failure to train and build managers. The investment in managers and the insistence on managers of high quality and high value are minimal in too many companies.
11. A tendency to hire people without clear expectations tied to competencies and company goals. People are hired all the time to fill a position rather than focus on a problem or to bring a set of competencies to a role.
12. Fast growth without controls…. Fake work isn’t just what you are doing, sometimes it is what you are not doing….”

Perhaps some of these points hit a nerve. Your comments appreciated.