The
Fast Eat the Slow in the Land of the Quick and the Dead.
In this
age of quickly changing technology, it’s no
longer just the big eating the little. Now, in the land of
the quick and the dead, the fast eat the slow.
Speed to market is critical.
Remember learning in school that business was all about land,
labor and capital? Forget it. The new elements for business
success are technology, marketing and speed. Here are three
qualifying questions to ask of yourself or your company:
- Do you have a new technology that gives you a competitive
edge for a window of time?
- Do you know how to market it?
- Can
you get it to market fast – before someone else
meets the consumer need you’re filling?
Let’s
look at the third element of speed and how it relates to
teams:
In most
top-down hierarchies, in order to get something accomplished,
a project must go “up the pyramid” for
approval at each major stage.
As the project goes up through the layers of management
for approval, each layer of management feels compelled to
add its mandates and put its fingerprints somewhere. And
as each change is mandated, the work comes back down for
revisions before it can proceed to the next level.
Sometimes
the piece being reviewed and approved is improved, but
more often it’s compromised by the “meddling
and diddling” that occurs at each level. The higher
you are on the pyramid, the further you are from the realities
of the front lines. So your edits/changes are not necessarily
improvements.
Front-line
decision makers who deal with the suppliers and deliver
the services to clients on a
daily basis are often
better informed than their CEO about such areas as the effects
that disruptive technologies like the Internet and new software
solutions can have on customer service. The actual architects
of the project are often demoralized by the changes made
to their work as it scales the pyramid. And projects are
often slowed to the speed of a glacier! The supervisors and
the supervisors’ supervisor are
not usually at their desks waiting to review and approve.
They’re often unavailable at the time they’re
needed. So the project languishes. Pages fly off the calendar
and the competition might win the game because of faster
speed to market.
Self-directed
teams are faster. Period.
These
teams, working in a full-feedback environment, are able
to draw on the seasoned experience of others in the organization
for consulting and quality control, remain accountable
for their own work and deliver the work on schedule.
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