By Christopher Murphy CHAPTER 13Reverse the hierarchy
The CEO tells the CFO who queries the COO who consults the CAO...
seriously, who invents these titles? While this conversation cycles perpetu-
ally, like a scene in Dilbert’s office^9 , the PA shrugs and gets the job done.
If you’re stuck at a creative impasse, one idea to force change is to re-
verse the hierarchy. Give control to those further down the pecking order.
Ask them how they would approach the task at hand — you just might be
surprised at the insight you receive. Wisdom does not always flow from
the top down and truly great leaders understand that. Switch roles from
time to time and experience life in another’s shoes. You’ll find the change
of perspective leads to new understanding.
ban the Culture of “They”
If you’ve adopted fluid approaches to reconfiguring your team members,
embraced a culture of chance collisions and your team is working well,
the word “they” shouldn’t exist. Ban phrases like, “Oh, ‘they’ do that job.” If
everyone’s pulling together, there’s no reason for a “they” to exist. Who are
they anyway?
In his book The Art of Innovation, IDEO’s Tom Kelley describes a major
transportation company that had decided to “loosen up”. He writes:
‘They’ suggested there had been a lot of confusion and anxiety about what to
wear on ‘casual Fridays’. So ‘they’ formed a task force. ‘They’ issued a memo
saying, among other things, that if you were unsure about whether something
was appropriate [to wear] or not, it’s probably not.And so it went on... Banish “they” and, whatever you do, don’t be like
them.