The Squawk Point

Organisational Mechanics

  • Home
  • Blog
    • People
    • Data
    • Process
    • Wild Cards
    • Index
  • Podcast
  • Book

The Stretch

9 November, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

How should you manage a stretch?  We all have them.  A whopping great big number forced in on top of our budgets.

A couple of options:

1.  Divide and conquer:  split the two or twenty million up between departments and set them up against each other, Mano a Mano.  See who succeeds and who fails.
2.  Team work:  point out what the hole is and see what your team can come up.  All fail or all succeed.

When you look at it like that it is fairly obvious which is the better option.

So why don’t we do it?  What is it about our psyche that forces the heroic, independent, save the day mentality?

It is possible to be a hero and work in a team.  As the three musketeers would say.  “All for one and one for all”

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: cost saving, silo management, teamwork, video

About the Author

James Lawther
James Lawther

James Lawther is a middle-aged, middle manager.

To reach this highly elevated position he has worked in numerous industries, from supermarket retailing to tax collecting.  He has had several operational roles, including running the night shift in a frozen pea packing factory and carrying out operational research for a credit card company.

As you can see from his C.V. he has either a wealth of experience or is incapable of holding down a job.  If the latter is true this post isn’t worth a minute of your attention.

Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to read it and decide for yourself.

www.squawkpoint.com/

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Explore

accountability assumptions beliefs best practice blame bureaucracy capability clarity command and control communication complexity continuous improvement cost saving culture customer focus data is not information decisions employee performance measures empowerment error proofing fessing up gemba human nature incentives information technology innovation key performance indicators learning management style measurement motivation performance management poor service process control purpose reinforcing behaviour service design silo management systems thinking targets teamwork test and learn trust video waste

Receive Posts by e-Mail

Get the next post delivered straight to your inbox

Creative Commons

This information from The Squawk Point is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Creative Commons Licence
Customer Experience Update

Try This:

  • Fish Bone Diagrams – Helpful or Not?

  • Should You Punish Mistakes?

  • Regression to The Mean

  • Brilliance Alone Won’t Take You Far

Connect

  • E-mail
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • YouTube
  • Cookies
  • Contact Me

Copyright © 2025 · Enterprise Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in