The rate at which, and the levels to which organisations – including civil society organisations, charities, political parties and governments – fail or otherwise underperform is unbelievable!

Global statistics show that 80 out of 100 businesses fail within their first 5 years. Of those that survive, 80 percent still fail within the subsequent 4 years. Out of those that remain after these 9 years, only 15 out of 100 make a significant profit; the remaining 85 percent just hang in there.

That means if 100 businesses start today, in 9 years only 4 of them will be surviving; and of the 4, only 1 will be making a significant profit. This is a major cause of the rampant unemployment and the under-employment or low remuneration, job losses and other poverty-related issues that is plaquing society.

These alarming levels of economic hazards prevail mostly because most workers – staff and management alike – tend to be highly ineffective and unproductive. And like a feedback loop, this leads to alarming leadership crisis which then worsens the situation. Because in a bid to deal with or solve the challenges that do crop up in organisations – as they must – leaders tend to use methods or approaches that are so ineffective. We have already learnt that most people would rather not think, make their opinions known, or speak in public. And also that, 85 percent of business executives have issues or concerns at work that they are afraid to raise. Let alone get the subordinates to contribute effectively towards solving them.

So, there is alarming levels of economic hazards because workers tend to be highly ineffective and unproductive. But just how ineffective and unproductive?

Well, research shows that in most organisations, only 15 percent of the subordinates know what their organisations’ or departments’ top goals and priorities are.

A vast majority of subordinates – 85 out of every 100 subordinates; a whopping 85 percent – do not know what their organisation or department’s top goals and priorities are. Of those who know the top goals and priorities, only 19 out of 100 feel passionate about these top goals and priorities; that translates to about 3 percent of all the subordinates.

Again, of those who know the organisation or department’s top goals and priorities, only 49 percent of their working hours is spent on the most important goals; more than half of the time is spent on less important activities.

In a sense, in most organisations what the people are able to accomplish the whole year, is actually doable within 3 to 4 months.

This is attributable to the failure of leadership.

Again, this issue of general low productivity – even among leaders – applies to organisations of all sorts, including countries and governments as earlier stated.