How many Franklin households have a second TV?
Does yours? Yves says:
"Look, at home I have two TVs. Why? Precisely not to have to cooperate with my wife."
There are probably quite a few Franklin homes with more than one TV.
What does this have to do with Franklin? The business of Franklin is providing services to the people who live and work here. How we provide these services is very important. When we are successful, others will recognize Franklin as "The safest city" and the "best place to raise a family." When we are not successful... well let's not go there. You can come up with your own horror story.
As reported this week, the Town Council decided to remove the fire fighters from
Civil Service. This was the last group to be removed from a system that is over 100 years old. There will still be a negotiation with the fire fighters union to implement new hiring process and procedures. But it is about time that this restriction, put in place for a different world is put aside. The world today is not what it was when
Civil Service was introduced.
In
this TED Talk,
Yves Morieux tackles the complexity of work and comes up with
6 rules to simplify. With that much said, here is what Yves says:
The way we organize is based on two pillars. The hard -- structure, processes, systems. The soft -- feelings, sentiments, interpersonal relationships, traits, personality. And whenever a company reorganizes, restructures, reengineers, goes through a cultural transformation program, it chooses these two pillars. Now, we try to refine them, we try to combine them. The real issue is -- and this is the answer to the two enigmas -- these pillars are obsolete. Everything you read in business books is based either on one or the other or their combination. They are obsolete.
Yves makes this point as he closes this 12 minute talk:
You need to reward those who cooperate and blame those who don't cooperate. The CEO of The Lego Group, Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, has a great way to use it. He says, blame is not for failure, it is for failing to help or ask for help. It changes everything. Suddenly it becomes in my interest to be transparent on my real weaknesses, my real forecast, because I know I will not be blamed if I fail, but if I fail to help or ask for help. When you do this, it has a lot of implications on organizational design. You stop drawing boxes, dotted lines, full lines; you look at their interplay. It has a lot of implications on financial policies that we use. On human resource management practices. When you do that, you can manage complexity, the new complexity of business, without getting complicated. You create more value with lower cost. You simultaneously improve performance and satisfaction at work because you have removed the common root cause that hinders both complicatedness. This is your battle, business leaders. The real battle is not against competitors. This is rubbish, very abstract. When do we meet competitors to fight them? The real battle is against ourselves, against our bureaucracy, our complicatedness. Only you can fight, can do it.
