The Constructicons

For those out there that are not familiar with the Constructions; these green construction vehicles were part of the original Transformers story/cartoon toy line

Now individually they had their own strengths, weaknesses, personalities, and so on.  As the story goes, these Constructicons (if necessary) would form together into a giant robot by the name of Devastator. Now this guy was massive, and super strong....but he had one big problem: he was incredibly dense and just way too slow.  It was always his undoing. OK, so where am I going with this?

Consider many teams/departments within any given organization. As invidivual groups they can be quite nimble and effective. Even as an individual, you might be ultra-efficient and super-productive. But, here comes the problem (just as our Constructicon friends have learned time and time again), it would seem intuitive that all of these teams forming together would make one super-powered organization. Instead (like Devastotor), you get lots of power, not enough speed, rapidly dropping intelligence (due to beauracracy, politics, etc).

So, if an advanced robot race can't get it right, how can we?  We sure can, by keeping these three principles in mind:

One - Always remind yourself (and your team) that your goals are to assist in the meeting the goals of the company overall - not just to meet the goals of your team at the expense of others or the company.

Two - Don't be the bottleneck. Adjust to meet the needs and expectations (and speed) of other individuals and teams that must interface and work with you.

Three - Don't create the bottleneck. Converse to the second principle; adjust you and/or your team's output to ensure that you are not creating a workload, resource, or capacity issue.

Perhaps an advanced robot race just made things too complicated. It does not have to be that difficult.