A Very Sensitive Issue

There’s a sensor on my car that detects the outside temperature.

Like everything else in the car, it talks to the central computer.

Now here’s the thing: no matter what the other systems say to the computer it only appears to listen to that little outside temperature sensor.

So, despite the fact that the oil temperature is reading exceedingly low at the moment, the climate control system has set itself, on instruction from the outside sensor, for Namibian temperatures. Oh yes, and that despite having allegedly detected arctic temperatures only minutes beforehand. Clearly the GPS has little say in the matter too.

This episode has made me think about how flawed this type of ‘Command and Control’ management really can be. Whilst un-managed consensus can of course lead to indecision, good, well-run collaborative management can get to the very heart of what to deal with and how to do so.

A CIO was tasked with moving the whole of the IT department to a different geographic location. Working with people who spend every day looking for the next problem to join the queue, he realised that if he just announced the task he’d be swamped by the avalanche of reasons why it was an impossible dream. (In automotive terms, he’d gauged the temperature correctly).

He called everyone together and told them how he’d spent the last couple of hours thinking about all the reasons why the task couldn’t be achieved. Frankly, there were hundreds of them. Nevertheless, before telling the rest of the senior management team that, he felt it only right to let the team have their say.

There was a huge commotion as team member after team member came forward with ideas as to how the task could be achieved.

What the CIO had done is simply changed the nature of the problem: instead of it being all about the move it became about how the move could be achieved. That might seem like a subtle change but it was a significant one.

Nowadays, as I drive my car, alternating between shirtsleeves and several jumpers I wonder if the automotive designers couldn’t learn a thing or two about the often unseen impacts of Command and Control management. And, having done so, introduce some consensus thinking. Brrrrr.