The conference room was comfortable. New leather chairs and a marble top. Nothing like success to create a little overhead.
Sam had assembled a cast of the brightest minds in the company. Marketing was represented, sales, customer service, production and accounting. Everyone looked armed with official looking reports, charts and graphs, ready to defend the slightest attack.
Sam was good. He wasn’t looking for a scapegoat. He knew the problem wasn’t from someone being lazy, or even a wrong decision. He knew it was more likely that the organization’s system needed some attention.
He began by explaining what he had observed, and asked each member to accurately report the real figures behind the events. Unfortunately, four weeks worth of excess finished goods had translated into an eight-week inventory turn. Something had put the brakes on the market.
“So, take a piece of paper,” Sam began, “and write down your condition of satisfaction for this meeting? What has to happen in the next two hours that will indicate time well spent?”
Indeed, it changes the complete tone of the meeting, once Leader makes it clear that the purpose of the meeting is to solve problem at hand creatively by bringing company’s collaborative might to bear, then fixing blame on those that caused the situation.
And if the problems are happening too often, it may be because leaders have failed to consciously review and redefine management processes (such as Information Management, Decion making or Communication process) to bring them in sync with overall strategy and execution plan.
To know more about Management Processes visit http:\\sustaining-relevance.com
Reflect!!!