Stop saying "The Business"
Day in, day out, I hear of an ominous, shadowy figure making decisions that endlessly alter the course of my professional life. A syndicate of suits whose sole ambition is nought more than the invasion of my professional liberties. The men and women behind the curtain. The puppet masters. Our faceless overlords.
"The illuminati!?", I hear you ask.
Worse. "The business". Whenever a negative decision has been made, "The business" is behind it. "The business feels that...", "The business has decided that...". I never hear anything good come out of "The business".
But what exactly is the business?
The word itself conjures up images of men and women in suits, waving around bureaucratic forms and demanding everyone follow a strict protocol... But who exactly are those people? The word is a little stuffy, unattractive. It doesn't invite us to prise deeper into what this business thing is, so we relegate them to a function outside of our office. Fundamentally, it turns them into a process.
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
The agile manifesto has a lot of wisdom in it; none more than this. Stop looking at the rest of the business as some alien machine in which you are forced to operate and start looking at it like a group of individuals, all simply trying to do their best at their chosen skill.
So what do we do?
When "The business" has made a decision, find out who put pen to paper. Euphemisms and vague references don't make decisions. People make decisions. People with whom you can speak, debate, discuss, understand and form friendships. From there, you can begin to influence the decisions that are made in the future.
If you feel like you're on an island in your company, the most important thing you can do is break down that silo mentality of abstracting people into departments or worse, "everyone but us". Turn it into people.
Names and job titles and phone numbers and emails and embarrassing stories about them drinking too much at the Christmas party.
Give it a go, people may surprise you.
DiPM MCIM Head of Product, experienced in Corporate & Commercial SME Banking Products (Transaction Banking and Lending)
7 年It's my number 1 frustration, when this is used. It shows disassociation with the e2e process and especially those teams who act in their silo and come out to the give advice
CEO @ Studiospace - On-demand access to the world’s best specialist digital and marketing agencies
7 年Agree, personal accountability, ownership and pride prevents this kind of talking and thinking - barely exists in the small ‘business’ world
Project Management & Team Leadership
7 年Add 'Internal customers' into the mix. Definitions of customer & stakeholder will always continue to change.
Architecting the physical and digital supply chains of personalized medicine. Trusted advisor.
7 年Way overdue!