- About Environment, Products, Size, and People
- Consider Specialization First...
- ...And Generalization Second
- Widen People's Job Titles
- Cultivate Informal Leadership
- Watch Team Boundaries
- The Optimal Team Size Is 5 (Maybe)
- Functional Teams versus Cross-Functional Teams
- Two Design Principles
- Choose Your Organizational Style
- Turn Each Team into a Little Value Unit
- Move Stuff out to Separate Teams
- Move Stuff up to Separate Layers
- How Many Managers Does It Take to Change an Organization?
- Create a Hybrid Organization
- The Anarchy Is Dead, Long Live the Panarchy
- Have No Secrets
- Make Everything Visible
- Connect People
- Aim for Adaptability
- Summary
- Reflection and Action
Connect People
In his book Fired Up or Burned Out, Michael L. Stallard shows us that one of the best ways to achieve organizational excellence is to "connect with people." And in their book Love 'Em or Lose 'Em, Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans describe the concept of "creating connections," which they call one of the 26 engagement strategies [Kaye, Jordan-Evans 2008:113-122].
Creating and maintaining meaningful connections with employees (and between employees) is not just some fancy way of making managers seem more human. As we saw in Chapter 12, the need for connections is rooted in complexity theory.
Resilience and innovation in an organization are the result of people having good relationships with each other so that information flows freely and undistorted. You have to make sure that people enjoy working together. Remove cubicle walls, have informal meetings, facilitate coffee and smoke breaks, and stimulate that people enjoy each other's company at lunch or dinner.
And try and engage in more meaningful relationships with your employees. It doesn't mean you have to be close friends with everyone. That's not even possible. But simply knowing a little more about their life, their families, their home, and their hobbies (and them knowing some more about yours) would be a great start.