Bulldozer00's Blog

In all triangular CCHs (Command and Control Hierarchies), the DICs (Dweebs In the Cellar) directly create the value added outputs that sustain the enterprise. It’s management’s job (I think?) to ensure that the quality of those outputs is high enough for customers to want to buy the CCH’s products and services over competing CCHs. Of course, there are many ways to accomplish this. One is to inspect the outputs, a second is to get customer feedback, a third is to directly sample intermediate points in the value stream, and a trio of closely coupled others is to; personally descend to the cellar, observe what the DICs see, listen to what the DICs have to say regarding the issues/obstacles they face, and act “aggressively” (corpo-speak for “effectively”) to resolve those issues/obstacles. Note that the verbs, which require “hard work”, are emphasized.

The simple, dorky figure below tries to convey the difference in viewpoint between the DICs and the apex dwellers. Unlike the hierarchs, who operate freely and do whatever they want whenever they want, the DICs operate within a fragmented web of constraining “support” processes and “direction” from former DICs-turned-mini-hierarchs (picture mini-me in the Austin Powers movie franchise). Over time, since the hierarchs (and more importantly, the mini-hierarchs in training) stay away from the dirty and musty cellar and don’t do anything of substance to improve the environment, the stratification increases, the latency from raw input to value-added output increases, and the quality of output decreases. Bummer.

In CCHs with stay-at-home corpocrats, the deterioration in responsiveness and quality often gets detected at that point in time in which the real issues that are wreaking havoc are virtually unsolvable. Even then, the so-called leadership team stays away from the boiler room, speculating from afar at the causes of the performance deterioration. Out of all the methods for continuously monitoring and improving DIC performance, I assert (with no backing scientific evidence, of course) that frequent, periodic trips to the cellar to rub elbow grease with the DICs is the only true way of improving performance. Even if it’s impractical for the supreme hierarchs to do this, it’s not impractical for the mini-hierarchs, dontcha think?