Dumbest Practices Used By U.S. Companies

Bob Sutton ponders a few dumb practices, but my favorite one comes from his reader, Pat in the comments:

Rewarding Firefighters not Fire Inspectors.

In other words, the people spotting the problems and fixing them before the “fire” do not get rewards. The “firefighters” who rush and put out fires in progress do get reward.

But which is better for the company?

Once the fire starts, damage is already being done. “Fires” are stressful and distracting – but never seen a company yet that actively makes sure that fires don’t happen. But seen lots of companies that reward the firefighters ( even when they were the “pyromaniacs” )

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