Bulldozer00's Blog

An organization of people assembled for a purpose runs on all cylinders when every layer in its control structure creates a value stream that puts more into the org than it takes out. The higher you go up the pyramid of privilege, the less visible the added value, but the more the impact. In dysfunctional orgs, the upper layers don’t create any value and their impact is damaging to the whole. Like leeches, they suck the blood out of the org without contributing anything of substance.

It’s the responsibility (or, it should be) of each upper layer to sample the value stream produced by the lower layer(s) to ensure continuous excellence and improvement. Except for the DICforce (at rock bottom of course), each upper level can sample and measure any/all of the value streams below them.

In screwed up and inefficient corpocracies where the upper layers are too lazy or incompetent to sample the lower layer value streams, the only value stream samplers are the customers. This means that if crap makes it out the door, they’re the ones who discover and report it. At worst, they don’t report it and they silently blow off the org. They never buy anything from it again, and they tell all their peers to stay away from the crap factory. Meanwhile, everyone back at doo-doo ranch is asking each other; “Lucy, whuh hah-penned?”.