The Bottom-Up Revolution
December 3rd, 2011
The No. 1 reason initiatives are successful is support from top management. Whether it’s lean, Six Sigma, Design for Six Sigma or any program, top management support is vital. No argument. It’s easy with full support, but there’s never enough to go around.
But that’s the way it should be. Top management has a lot going on, much of it we don’t see: legal matters, business relationships, press conferences, the company’s future. If all programs had top management support, they would fail due to resource cannibalization. And we’d have real fodder for our favorite complaint—too many managers.
When there’s insufficient top management support, we have a choice. We can look outside and play the blame game. “This company doesn’t do anything right.” Or we can look inside and choose how we’ll do our work. It’s easy to look outside, then fabricate excuses to do nothing. It’s difficult to look inside, then create the future, especially when we’re drowning in the now. Layer on a new initiative, and frustration is natural. But it’s a choice.
We will always have more work than time….
Posted in Culture, Fear, Level 5 Courage, Magic, Positivity, Problems, Seeing Things As They Are | 
Tags: Bottom-Up
One Response to “The Bottom-Up Revolution”
Leave a Reply
Mike Shipulski
Entirely true. Top management needs to do things, which the team may not foresee, but may be very vital for the very existence of the team and the company. Financial and market pressures push them neck deep. It would be a sweet surprise to them, if a project shapes up to a level, before it is in the visibility of the management. Such an activity from the team would be well appreciated.