Issue 6

Andrew Bass's Pragmatics Newsletter

Practical techniques and thought-provoking ideas

ISSUE Number Six. November/December 2007 

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In this issue:

• Article: Lessons about Turf Wars from CSI Miami (under 4 minutes reading time).
• New white paper: Business Growth Step-by-Step.
• Learning Opportunity: Dramatically Enhancing the Effectiveness of Meetings.

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Lessons about Turf Wars from CSI Miami

The trouble with turf wars is that everyone's energy is focused internally - on the organisation and its politics, rather than externally on the customer or client. This can only be bad for business. A recent Hay Group study reported by the BBC concluded that 97% of mergers by UK companies fail to completely fulfil their strategic objectives, and that the biggest reason for failure was the culture shock caused by bringing the two organisations together.

Detective fiction can offer valuable management lessons - especially in regard to the power of evidence over assumptions. In an earlier newsletter, I discussed the use of the 'Columbo Technique' for dealing with under-performance, so I was delighted to find another lesson - one that points to a way to defeat value-destroying problems such as turf wars, in-fighting in management teams and the "not-invented here" syndrome.

This time the source was CSI Miami (Series 2, episode 47).

In this episode, Horatio (David Caruso) has to follow a lead from Miami to Manhattan, and quickly bumps into his New York counterpart Mac (Gary Sinise). The scene in which the two investigative aces meet for the first time is salutory.

Here are the key occurences:

• Horatio appears on Mac's territory at a crime scene connected to their two independent investigations. They have never met before. They are both senior, and are local heroes on their own patch. They have a potential jurisdictional clash. However: they avoid the clash totally and work together to resolve both cases: They focus on the question of how to maximise the value they are pursuing on behalf of their 'customers' (in this case, justice) , rather than starting by defending their status in an organisational stucture (geographically-defined turf).
  

  
  
• Horatio notes that Mac is using a different procedure from his own for the vital task of collecting evidence to take the lab. He remarks on it, but without any kind of judgemental connotation. Mac explains that the New York method is an alternative way of achieving the same principled aims as the Miami method. Horatio says 'interesting', and they move on: They are interested in producing the best result possible, and are open to alternative methods and improved practices. 

• Mac's assistant enters. Mac makes it clear that they are on the same side. The assistant immediately accepts this and gives full assistance to both Mac and Horatio: Mac has the trust of his assistant. His say so is enough to vouch for Horatio. And he has inculcated a pragmatic, results-oriented sense of priorities in his staff rather than a them-and-us bunker mentality.

All three characters have strong egos. In fact their egos are so strong that they don't need to shout about it. Because of their rationality, clarity of values, and strong self-esteem, they navigate the situation in a way that is strikingly different from most TV drama plots, and I'd suggest from many analogous real-life encounters.

Of course it's an idealised scenario - that's the point: it's a source of inspiration. 

Questions to think about

• Does your culture promote evidence and reason over assumptions and unarticulated feelings?
• Do your incentive systems make the kind of cooperation portrayed impossible?
• Are people clear enough on their responsibilites to stakeholders, and particularly customers/clients, to confidently negotiate potential 'jursidictional clashes'?

New White Paper: Business Growth Step-by-Step

Is management about people, or about the numbers? The answer is obviously both, but in practice, most managers have a tendency to concentrate on one or the other. I have just collaborated with my friend and colleague Alastair Dryburgh on a white paper about organic growth entitled: Business Growth Step-by-Step. Alastair's area is finance, while mine is individual and organisational performance - here we offer you a roadmap to help you keep both aspects in balance: Read article.


If you still have a minute...

Copyright 2007 Andrew Bass. All rights reserved. 


Permission granted to excerpt or reprint with attribution. 

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