The Blueprint

Getting Offices to Work Together

Most business owners are starting to realize the benefits of getting their locations to work together, but are finding challenges in implementing it.  I have personally seen companies with one production location working overtime and at maximum capacity while a nearby office is sitting idle.  There are many reasons for this: technology, internal procedures, and inertia.  I believe the primary contributor to this problem is performance measurement.  When managers of offices are brought together and their performance is compared their top line and bottom line results are presented.  Managers and whole offices are compared to their peers by the performance of their individual store.  Many will argue that they have plans where they give some credit for work that is shared, or some credit for the whole company.  This is better than not giving credit, but will not maximize cooperation between locations.  Most achievement oriented people will put their time and attention behind those things that they are measured on.  If you want to promote inter-office cooperation you need to look for different measurements.  Some in the industry are starting to figure this out with positive results.

We Don't Care.... We're the Phone Company

I had several IT managers contact me and empathize with my previous post.  It seems that even though competition was introduced to the telecommunications industry somehow we have reverted back to the same poor customer service that existed when there was a monopoly.  For those that know me well they know of my god-given gift to relate any situation to a Saturday Night Live skit.  We'll here's a SNL skit that is starkly familiar to conversations IT managers have with telecommunications companies providing network services.