I had lunch with a friend the other day with whom I used to work. I was asking him about the difference between a place we both used to work and his current employer. Both companies are widely regarded as talent-driven organizations that have outperformed their competitors in the market. His summary analysis was excellent, and I paraphrase it here:
"The place we used to work treated people like this: You suck, you suck, you suck, you're a managing director. The place I work now treats people like this: You're great, you're great, you're great, you're fired."
Obviously, Jack Welch would step in here, blow his whistle and say that should have been "you're great, you're great, you're great, you're managing director" and "you suck, you're fired". Does GE really operate that way? How do these other companies achieve such success with seemingly dysfunctional team cultures? Unfortunately, you'll have to answer these questions in your own mind, since my comment and trackback spam have gotten so unwieldy that I long ago disabled both.
Posted by Dick at April 8, 2006 01:20 PM