Questions - First Lets Fire All the Managers

Question 1

The most important lesson I took from this article, was that companies perform better when employees are trusted to perform. Authentic empowerment. It really struck a chord with me when Rufer was quoted as saying, “So the question isn’t where the buck stops, but where it starts – and it starts with the person who needs the equipment.”.

It is not uncommon for companies to pay lip-service to staff empowerment, they will shout about it in their recruitment drives and on their websites, but few would make it a part of their operational strategy, preferring instead to rely heavily on traditional hierarchical management principles. At The Morning Star Company however, employees are given the ultimate signal that they are trusted and empowered – full discretion on spend.

I am sure it is no accident that trust also happens to be the foundation upon which John Maxwell bases all of the other 4 characteristic behaviors of effective team members, in his book, “The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team”.

The second most striking lesson I gleaned from this article is that The Morning Star Company fully understands the relationship between strategy and key metrics. The Morning Star Company insists that every CLOU is supported with, “a set of detailed ‘stepping stones’”. This sort of clarity enables the crucial, “Freedom-Responsibility” pairing.

Question 2

This is a difficult question to answer, and it was one that I kept asking myself when I first read the article; I noticed that I was becoming a little uncomfortable as it was challenging my more parochial beliefs about management and organizational structure. Ultimately, however, I would not be able to embrace both of the key learnings indicated above, not because I discount their value, but because of the phase of my business. I could most certainly lay out metrics that are more clearly measureable, and while I already try and employ a trust economy at my company, I am nowhere near the levels displayed by The Morning...