The "Identify one or two simple reasons..." point reminds me of the grand master of turnarounds: Gerstner. When he got the job I called him "the cookie guy" because what the hell did he know about computers (not much). But what he did know was how to turn the supertanker around.
Everybody expected a grand plan and after he did a walkabout and met everybody and learned what the company was doing his decision was: don't change much, just keep at it. (general derision from the press ensued).
He then went and fixed a bunch of widespread problems that fucked EVERYTHING up and so almost everything started to work properly.
It's hard-earned knowledge. I have had the privilege to work with Ivan and couldn't pass posting it here because it is an awesome piece. What he outlines is equally applicable for anything that involves a lot of people. It all boils down to fixing the people issue. It is interesting that many times you do not even have to change the people to make the machine work.It almost always comes to lack of experience, lack of leadership from above, unclear goals and denial you have a problem (which is due to the lack of experience).
You brought an interesting point and I have observed it myself too. At many occasions teams would be on the track to improvement but they would crumble because of pressure from above. When a kid can't even walk, regardless of how hard you push it, it can't start running. This applies to engineering teams too.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 21.6 ms ] threadThe "Identify one or two simple reasons..." point reminds me of the grand master of turnarounds: Gerstner. When he got the job I called him "the cookie guy" because what the hell did he know about computers (not much). But what he did know was how to turn the supertanker around.
Everybody expected a grand plan and after he did a walkabout and met everybody and learned what the company was doing his decision was: don't change much, just keep at it. (general derision from the press ensued).
He then went and fixed a bunch of widespread problems that fucked EVERYTHING up and so almost everything started to work properly.
Rather amazing.
You brought an interesting point and I have observed it myself too. At many occasions teams would be on the track to improvement but they would crumble because of pressure from above. When a kid can't even walk, regardless of how hard you push it, it can't start running. This applies to engineering teams too.