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| The Manager's Call |
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Them Versus Us
If Roy belonged to that section of the team, he wouldn’t want to come to project meetings either.
The three-year-old, hot-selling software was rapidly evolving from gold dust to shelf dust. The sales force, who just months ago could barely keep up with the orders, were now offering this software to long term clients rather apologetically. The task of assembling and overseeing the redevelopment team had fallen to Roy. It was a true career-maker, and yet the whole thing seem hopelessly snarled.
He had gathered representatives from marketing, sales, finance, legal, and, of course, production. From the outset, everyone had ideas - they flowed mightily and contentiously in each project development session. As each new suggestion lifted across the conference table, the three engineers from production shot it down with frightful accuracy. They radiated the belief that they alone had a corner on reality, and the rest were simply making fanciful wish lists to make their own department’s life easier.
Roy did have a certain sympathy with them. The other department representatives truly didn’t seem to have any concept of what could actually be created and produced. He himself had risen through the ranks as a production specialist and had watched basically sharp software become encumbered by a never ending wave of committee add ons.
The problem was not one of communication. The team communicated continuously, sincerely, and often with bared teeth. In fact, this communication had divided them into armed camps of “We” and “They.”
It’s your call. If you were Roy, how would you unite the team’s factions and get members to judge ideas based more on their content, than the source?
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