Failure is not our only option

What happens to the performance of an organisation when the culture is not one of hope and potential, but the absolute conviction that failure is the only option?

‘We know we can’t succeed.’

What if your role in the community is one where lives depend on you – like a nurse, or a policeman, or an air traffic controller – and rather than working to constantly improve outcomes, if the leaders of the organisation instead work to justify poor performance?

‘Sorry you’ve ended up needing our help, but we won’t try and help you because we know we can’t succeed.’

What if the industry is one where once a year it gets really busy – hellishly busy in fact – like retail or travel agents or those Christmas holiday tourist towns; would it be ok to accept defeat then?

‘Thanks for coming just like we knew you would, but we’re not going to set up programs to try accommodate you because we know we can’t succeed’

And what would happen to the communities regard for us, if we took the message of failure to the media and made it our slogan;

‘Hi, I’m Michelle and I know I cannot succeed today, and I have no plans to try and succeed tomorrow and I believe I will probably continue to fail until the new year.’

It’s not hard to see that any organisation needs to nurture a culture that celebrates success. Especially where lives depended on it or if it gets hellishly busy once a year. Management have a responsibility to be driving a strategy to lead the organisation to improved outcomes. By contrast, sending out a pre-emptive message of failure would be the death knell of the organisation, as setting the mindset of both employees and the community to ‘FAIL’ would doom you to reduced capabilty, decreased job satisfaction and almost assured non-performance.

And yet, we don’t only accept, we almost expect this kind of defeatist behaviour from pounds heading into the summer holidays.

The tragic aftermath of cat breeding season will be played out in Gladstone in coming months.

If last year’s figures are anything to go by, up to 100 pregnant cats and unwanted kittens are expected to be dumped at Gladstone pound between November and January next year. Sadly, a large percentage of these will be euthanised.

And the sad truth is it happens every year.

….

A sobering true statement, according to Gladstone Regional Council Local Law Enforcement coordinator Sarah Kummerow.

Ms Kummerow said each year around the Christmas period there was an increase in cat impoundment numbers.

Likewise, many cats are being trapped by community members sick of them roaming the streets and making a nuisance of themselves.

She said the sad thing is a majority of cats get euthanised because people don’t want to come forward and collect them.

“It is much harder to re-home an adult cat than a dog,” Ms Kummerow said.

“People aren’t going to be wanting to adopt a cat – it’s a sad fact of life.

Really? Because there are lots of examples across the world where people didn’t only want to adopt one cat, but hundreds of people adopted hundreds of cats, when organisations took the time to reach out to them.

The truth isn’t “cats get euthanised because people don’t want to come forward and collect them”, the truth is cats get ‘euthanised’ because pounds don’t work on finding solutions OTHER than killing them. By placing the blame on the community rather than setting a plan to improve outcomes for these animals ensures the same result is seen year to year.

Sure, it takes a lot of work to get adult cats into homes, get the media to take notice, to make a result other than the almost certain death for these animals, but saving them becomes our job when we choose to accept them into our care.

What’s more, Gladstone have identified their problems up front and could be working to address each one of these in turn;

– Too many undesexed cats? Hit the issue head on, before it even begins; give every low income earner and pensioner in your community free cat desexing. Target areas where cats are known to be prolific and go door to door offering free cat desexing.

– Too many unowned cats being impounded by enthusastic community members? Stop giving cat haters traps. Stop accepting cats that are feral and have no hope of becoming someones pet. Instead agree only to desex the cat and return it to its home. Stop telling people to bring healthy, free-roaming cats to you if all you can offer them is death.

– Not enough adoptions? 100 cats over three months is about 33 a month – one a day. Host a cat only adoption event. Run a senior cats for seniors program. Get all your kittens into a pet shop. Open your shelter until after 7pm all the way through January. Put your cats on the web with nice photos. Promote ‘barn cat’ adoptions. Use the ‘big fun guide to saving cats’ to plan the next three months.

Advertise what you need your community to do to achieve success rather than squandering media opportunities by promoting your plans to fail. Creating a organisational culture which thrives on success doesn’t just happen, it has to be cultivated, planned and nutured. And without a culture of success these animals have no hope.