today was an incredibly frustrating day in corporate wonderland. however a blog post by johnnie moore made me smile at the end of it.
It’s said that Tony Blair admitted his discomfort at finding, during his first months of office, that he kept pulling the levers of power and then discovering they weren’t connected to anything.
and
Lately I’ve been using a phrase I made up - “blancmange leveragers” to describe folks who are over-attached to being in control, and inventing new schemes to make things happen. The more elaborate their “tools”, the fancier their diagrams, the more abstract their language, the bigger their “announcements” and the more sanctimonious their tone… the more I see them leveraging blancmange.
i think this is exactly right.
coming from a smallish start-up bought by a large corp, i am constantly struck by the agility of the former and the torpor of the latter. is it possible for a large corp to operate like a start-up? in some ways it’s not. there are more regulations for a listed organisation. like it or not bureaucracy is always going to be a feature. nevertheless i remain convinced that it is possible to achieve agility and focus despite size. a lot of it is to do with hiring. i prefer to think of it as casting. there’s a reason behind google’s infamous hiring process. and it’s not just hiring. jack welch’s GE ran on firing the bottom 10% each and every year. jack tells a story of entering a 5th avenue shoe store and being recognised by the manager. “mr welch”, he says, “i saw you on TV saying that you have to fire the bottom 10% of the workforce. I only have 10 sales staff, do i have to fire one?”. Welch replied, “only if you want to be the best shoe store on 5th avenue”.
