I have been painted as Mr Negative but it’s the new guy who’s a dolt

Dear Aunty B,

We have a new member of staff who has pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes. He has come up with a strategy that is so dumb that at first I thought maybe it is actually brilliant. But when I took it to my staff they all told me it was as dumb as I thought and that we have tried bits of it over the years and it never worked.

The problem is we have a new CEO who is not familiar with the business but keeps demanding we deliver a plan and a new CFO who is a numbers nerd and is attracted to the data side of the strategy. I was sure the plan would go down in a glory of flames but to my horror the CEO was so excited, they got him to present it to the board, which swans in once every month and wouldn’t know if the business was run from the moon or Moonee Ponds.

Apparently they now think he is the best thing since sliced bread. I have tried to raise the red flag only to have it implied to me that I am jealous and should show “generosity of spirit” and give it a go. I am now called Mr Negative and have not been invited to some of the key meetings to work on the new strategy.

What do I do now that I am locked out of strategy, called negative and pushed to one side when I know the thing won’t work and what will actually work is doing lots of little things right which is not a big sexy plan. We are in the music business and need to try new things, but why are we coming up with things that we know don’t work when we have lots of little things which are working?

Gidday Auntie from all of us,
Sydney

Dear Gidday to all you too,

Tricky that. Happens all the time. Dumb strategy created by the new brass who are not familiar with the business.

Your problem is that you are in a declining industry with a churn and burn mentality. Strategy not working? Sack the people at the top and the new people will have a better one. The problem with that primarily is that you get left with no DNA which leaves the leadership team desperate and witless.

Here is what you must do. You become Mr Positive. All you want to do is talk about the success of the business. You are sure the new strategy is going to be a success and to keep things tickety-boo you are also making sure the other successful things stay successful.

What you also need to do is try and link the things that need to be done into the plan so that everything is, you guessed it, even more successful. Stay focused on the future and on what works.

When things start to unravel you frame comments around the fact that while you were hoping it would work this time, what you learnt from last time (when it buggered up) was this… You also need to be thinking ahead. How are all the little things going to look when you pull them into one big strategic plan?

So plaster a smile on your dial and await your turn in the sunshine!

Be smart,
Your Aunty B