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7 Ways to Prevent Organizational Problems

By Baselinemag on 2009-06-16

One of the hallmarks of great leadership is the ability to ferret out destructive organizational problems before they impact the working culture, says Michael Roberto.

As IT departments face cutbacks and mounting workloads, management must find ways to head off issues at the pass. Author of Know What You Don’t Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen, Roberto suggests the following seven ways to keep organizational problems at bay.

1. Look for and root out complexity that clouds visibility of risks, such as ambiguous lines of authority or complex matrix structures.

7 Ways to Prevent Organizational Problems - IT Management

2. Analyze organizational units and prioritize problem-finding activities on those with the highest financial impact.

3. Get out of your office and seek out unfiltered opinions from on the front lines and periphery of the department.

4. Look out for gatekeepers in the organization who might, intentionally or unintentionally, shield you from bad news.

5. Seek out workers who have weathered previous downturns to see if they might recognize problematic organizational patterns they’ve seen before.

6. Try to observe real customers, employees and suppliers in action so that you don’t have to rely just on what people tell you; nothing beats close observation for finding problems.

7. Don’t let employees scapegoat the recession for all of your organization’s woes. Look for deeper issues that will persist no matter the state of the economy.

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Baseline:	Issue Index \| Contact Us \| About \| Magazine Customer Service \| Navigation Guide
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	Ziff Davis Enterprise Home \| Contact Us \| Advertise \| Link to Us \| Reprints \| Magazine Subscriptions \| Newsletters Tech RSS Feeds \| White Papers \| Tech Podcasts \| Tech Video \| VARs \| System Builder
	Baseline \| Careers \| Channel Insider \| CIO Insight \| DesktopLinux \| DeviceForge \| DevSource \| eSeminars \| eWEEK \| Enterprise Network Security \| LinuxDevices \| Linux Watch \| Microsoft Watch \| Mid-market \| Networking \| PDF Zone \| Publish \| Security IT Hub \| Strategic Partner \| TechDirect \| Technology White Papers \| Windows for Devices
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	Copyright ©1996-2012 Ziff Davis Enterprise Holdings Inc. All Rights Reserved. eWEEK and Spencer F. Katt are trademarks of Ziff Davis Enterprise Holdings, Inc. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff Davis Enterprise Inc. is prohibited.