Like many of you (well, 38 million of you anyway), I watched the debut of Undercover Boss following the Super Bowl broadcast. Interesting premise – a CEO goes undercover at his own company to see how the “stuff” rolls downhill until it lands amidst the workers we see on the show.
On the show the CEO of Waste Management, a seemingly nice enough guy, got a taste of how the policies he sets forth get implemented. It’s like a big corporate game of telephone and he was looking to understand what came out the other end. What he found out was that even with the best of intentions (and we can debate for hours what came out in the editing room), policies often get screwed up on the way to reality. And that’s what hit me throughout: Continue reading
Category Archives: Helpful Hints
Undercover Boss
Filed under Helpful Hints, Reality checks
Cooler Heads
I’d really like to write about politics since I think there is so much going on that’s grounds for an interesting discussion. But I won’t. Want to know why? It’s because I want you to finish reading my stuff and not dismiss it because of some political position I’ve taken. It’s because too many folks get aggravated just by the thought of discussing political matters and that aggravation gets in the way of a productive discussion. It’s really interesting how a simple question about anything in current events can lead to polarized yelling. People see their positions, not words, and quit reading. So while you may think there’s some political message coming, you’re wrong. Continue reading
Filed under Helpful Hints, Reality checks, Thinking Aloud
Hurt vs. Injured
Let’s play pretend. Pretend there is a team of people working on a web project together. The team has reached the very end of the build and is hoping to get it launched soon. Suddenly, one sector of the team decides they don’t like the way something looks and proposes a change. Making the change might make the product look nicer but it won’t affect the way it works. Nothing is broken – it’s just not pretty. With deadlines looming, do you make the change? Continue reading
Filed under Consulting, Helpful Hints
Consult Keith 