31. Don't try justifying stupid systems

"Forcing a given team to adopt an approach that they don't believe in, either in their development process or in the language they're using to create the system, is a certain recipe for failure." Luke Hohmann, Beyond Software Architecture

I was travelling on the railway the other day (yes, there are still some of us who do) when we encountered a problem. It was fairly simple. Someone had messed with a security door at the buffet and triggered an alarm - or something. This brought the train to a standstill, probably quite rightly. But it did this in a very long tunnel. The train couldn't move until the fault had been rectified, which involved finding the train manager (they used to be called guards, remember?) and getting him to reset the triggered alarm, All fairly simple.

I was running very late for a meeting, so asked if there wasn't a better system - i.e. letting the buffet staff reset the alarm. The train manager spent about 20 minutes justifying why this system was the best for everyone concerned, him, the buffet staff, the train authorities, everyone that is except me, the poor passenger. Much better if he'd just said, 'Yes, it's a useless system and I shall recommend we change it, thank you for your concern'.

And I bet you have a dozen useless systems within your organi­zation -we all do. Best not try to justify them. If you can't change them, put up with it, get on with it, but don't try hoodwinking the staff into thinking it's all fab. It isn't, and you lose respect and

trust if you try convincing people that it's fine when they know it's not.

I'm not saying you should go round lamenting loudly everything that is bad about your company - far from it, that road only leads to ruin. Remember, if you can't say something nice, best not to say anything at all. Just don't try justifying something you know is stupid, especially to your team.

32. Be ready to say yes

"Silicon Valley has developed a 'genius' business model. You find a genius. You build a business around them." Gordon Bell and Heidi Mason, The Care and Feeding of "Intrapreneurs"'

The good manager - that's you - tries to stay completely fresh. Not to get stuck in the same old ways of doing things. That means not having a default mechanism of !No, we don't do it like that'. Instead replace it with That's an interesting idea. How do you think that would work?'

What's more, you need to encourage people to come up with new ideas, as well as coming up with them yourself. Try ideas out. Take one new idea each week and give it a go. It might be fairly simple, 'We'd like more choice of biscuits with our morning tea, please', or something radical, 'Listen up, guys, we're going to try a completely new approach to sales and distribution'.

Obviously it makes sense to try out smaller ideas first to make sure your team can cope well with change, and then move on to the more radical ones later. Break 'em in slowly.

And as fast as you are introducing new ideas, get your team to do the same with their own individual jobs so that they don't grow stale either. If everyone has a new idea each week, that's a whole big bunch of new ideas by the end of the year for themselves and for the whole team. 'I just thought I could speed the process up if I..." Wow, I could take that idea and adapt it to my work station and then I could . . .' 'Yeah, and I bet they'd be really interested in this in accounts because it could speed up the whole . . .' And so on.

Biggest challenge? Getting your team onside - everyone is resistant to change initially. If you flag, the whole team will also flag. If you maintain the passion, the whole team will be infected and become addicted to this. Believe rne. Trust me. I know you already have enough to do, but we'll move on to delegating in a bit and that'll free up some time. Then you'll have more time to do this, which, in a way, is part of your real job - managing.

Encourage innovation. Reward good ideas. Create a culture where ideas are recognized (even if not adopted) and valued.