Bulldozer00's Blog

Three things: people, money, and time. These three interdependent resource types are the weapons that managers can deploy to create and sustain wealth for an organization. Managers are tasked with the challenge of judiciously apportioning these raw resources to the creation and sustainment of value-added products and services that solve customer problems. In addition to the creation and sustainment of products and services, the difficulty of continuously aligning and steering large groups of people toward the goals of growth and increasing profitability causes problem “fires” to be ignited within the corpo citadel. Bloated processes and warring factions are just two examples of the infinite variety of “pop up” fires that impede growth and profitability.

Left unchecked, internal brush fires always grow and merge into paradoxically massive, but hidden, forest fires that consume valuable resources. Brush fires feed on neglect and ignorance. Instead of creating wealth and continuously satisfying the external customer base, the three resource pools get exhausted by constantly being allocated to extinguishing internal fires.

Unless managers can “see” the growing fires, one or more massive fireballs can burn the organization to the ground. So, how can managers prevent massive fireballs from consuming would-be profits and customer goodwill? By constantly listening to, and investigating, and smartly acting on, the concerns of their people and their customers. Just listening is not enough. Just investigating is not enough. Just listening and investigating is not enough. Just listening and investigating and ineffective action is not enough. Listening, investigating, and effective action are all required.