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Every week I send Keep the Joint Running to an opt-in list of subscribers. Every week I get a bunch of messages back — autoreplies about travel plans, messages that were undeliverable for one reason or another, and spam managers that ask me to click to confirm it’s a legitimate e-mail.

I also get returns like this one:

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This is an automated message from the mail server at [name withheld because I’m such a nice guy].

An email, apparently sent from you was not delivered because it contains one or more forbidden attachments. It has been placed in temporary Quarantine and will be reviewed by the mail administrator and released to the receipient (sic) if appropriate.

If you have any questions as to why your email was stopped, please call information security at 860-555-5555 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              860-555-5555      end_of_the_skype_highlighting [actual number withheld for similar reasons]

Please read the summary of the email content to determine why it was stopped.

image/jpeg

forbidden content type

Attachment: image001.jpg

image001.jpg

forbidden attachment

image/jpeg

forbidden content type

[a total of 13 images were listed, one of which was a jpeg of my smiling face]

objectionable content.

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The column in question was “Encouraging adulthood,” (Keep the Joint Running, February 6, 2006). The only possible objectionable content, if you’re wondering, was a reference to the less desirable afterlife alternative.

If Dante had only reserved a circle for the terminally stupid we’d know the ultimate destination of the clever soul who decided to establish this level of security. Because the next step is to ban pens and paper too (to eliminate the risk of nasty doodles), making employees chisel messages in granite. Then the business would be safe from all threats. Except, of course, the threat of employees beating each other to death with memos.

It’s like this: When you eliminate all risk, you eliminate all opportunity. I’m tempted to point out that this is yet another example of optimizing a part (security) at the expense of the whole (getting useful work done) except that we just finally put that subject to bed last week, so never mind.

Corporate America is at risk (get it?) of becoming the League of Frightened Executives. Don’t believe me? How many conversations have you been part of that included the fretful worry, “Someone might sue us!”

Well, yes. There are bottom feeders out there who will sue anyone at the drop of a hat, claiming the hat-fall traumatized their poodle. Does that mean you’ll never remove your chapeau again for fear of litigation?

Among modern corporate executives, the answer, too often, is a proud, resounding “Yes!” And there you are, running IT, trapped in the middle as usual.

The name of the discipline is risk management, not risk elimination. That means IT should be implementing policy, not writing it, and those writing the policy should be clear and explicit about what constitutes the right balance between reducing risk and doing business with as little friction as possible. My bet is that the filter that classified my smiling face as a risk was put in place because there was no policy to follow. Or if there was, it was written by a member of the League of Frightened Executives and stated, “Make sure no spam gets through.”

As a place to start on the path out of the madness, consider the following for your spam filter, which begins with the notion that your employees are adults and you should treat them accordingly: Ask each employee to establish a profile based on their personal preference. Level 1 gives them maximum protection from anything and everything they might find offensive. Level 3 filters out what is clearly spam, but will probably leave in some offensive e-mails they’ll have to deal with manually. Level 2 is halfway between (and if they couldn’t figure that out, it’s time to reconsider your philosophy of employee retention).

Will a setup like this prevent employees from suing you if one of them chooses Level 3, receives something obnoxious, and decides it’s your fault? Of course not. Our legal system needs something equivalent to a Level 3 spam filter but doesn’t have one. There is little or no filtering at the filing level, and probably not enough at the don’t-be-ridiculous level.

You can’t do anything about the risk of being sued. What you should be asking is whether the above policy increases your risk of legitimate lawsuits. It’s a valid question, for which I don’t know the answer.

Besides, if I shared my opinion and it turned out to be wrong, you might sue me.

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|In: Leadership|Last Updated:

Consultants are attracted to Mission Statements the way flames attract moths. They always seem like such a good idea … until you get started. Almost inevitably, the roomful of people deteriorates into a squabbling mass. Some are fighting to make sure what they do is included; all argue passionately about the placement of commas and whether “happy” or “glad” is the more appropriate adjective.

I proposed a solution a long time ago (“Mission statements: Their cause and cure,” January 29, 1996) and updated it in Leading IT: The Toughest Job in the World. (Short version: Focus on concepts, not phrasing; make sure each concept is viewed as an alternative, not an embellishment; and insist that each concept describes ends, not means.)

It’s time to wrap up our discussion of organizational optimization. It began with a proposition from the KJR Manifesto: That to optimize the whole you have to sub-optimize the parts. Then we figured out that “optimize” has to be with respect to only one system variable. And last week we found that for real-world businesses, optimization is really a chimera anyway because there’s no practical way to understand a business and its markets well enough to figure out what “optimum” even means.

What business managers need to do, it turns out, is to set their sights a bit lower — to improve. Since “form follows function,” is the touchstone of organizational design, just as it is for any other design discipline, if you want to know what constitutes improvement you have to know what you’re trying to accomplish. That means understanding the enterprise’s mission, vision and strategy. Then you can craft your own organization’s mission, vision and strategy so they further those of the enterprise.

This is why consultants facilitate Mission Statement drafting sessions. It isn’t because we find Mission Statements … and Vision Statements, and strategies … appealing because we lack better ideas for padding our contracts (well, okay, some consultants do that, but at IT Catalysts we would never stoop that low — it would hurt our lumbar vertebrae). It’s because clients hire us to help them improve organizational performance, and we can’t until we know in which direction “improve” lies. (Just to make sure we’re on the same page: Mission is about the present — what you’re supposed to do. Vision and strategy are about the future: Where you’re going and how you’re going to get there.)

Were it not for the future, this wouldn’t be all that difficult. With clarity about what you’re trying to support and how you’re supposed to support it, you can be pretty clear about what you need to improve so you support it better.

But you can’t ignore the future. Businesses have strategies, strategies are about change, and that makes things messy. You and all the other parts of the whole have to figure out how to change in ways that are sufficiently well orchestrated that the business doesn’t tear itself apart, but not so carefully orchestrated that it loses all elasticity. You also have to figure out how to allocate your budget and staff so you don’t stop supporting the present, but also don’t support the present at the expense of the future. There is no magic formula. There is, however, Guideline #2 from the KJR Manifesto: Big solutions that work great generally start as small solutions that work acceptably.

Strategies start with a design and a plan. The successful ones start with an additional item: Recognition that the design, the plan, or both might be flawed.

That being the case, the plan should, if at all possible, be organized into small steps, not giant leaps. Each small step is defined in terms of improvement to one or more parts of the enterprise. Following each small step you reconnoiter, to make sure the design, plan, and company are all holding together.

To illustrate the point, imagine you and a friend decide to attend a Halloween party in one of those two-person horse costumes. Now imagine that the first thing you and your friend try to do is gallop around a path with a lot of twists and turns.

You might make it. More likely, one of you will zig while the other zags, tearing the costume apart. If that happens, both of you will be at fault, for trying to go too far too fast.

But while you both might be responsible for the problem, only one of you will end up looking like the back end of a horse.

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