Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
9.9 Golf Weaknesses and Analogies to Business
GEAR and NANO revert to behaviors not in their best interests during times
of crisis. Senior management at NANO becomes consumed with the current
problems and stops
guiding
and
communicating
with the rest of the organiza-
tion. At GEAR, engineering stops
communicating
with project management.
Both organizations know these patterns exist, but they don't seem to be able
to stop. This is similar to where I found myself on the golf improvement
project during the second week when I wrote:
My swing feels like it's totally gone. The ball is flying to the left on one shot,
and the next shot flies far to the right.
When I get to this point on the golf course, I might as well go home for the
day. I have not found a good way to recover from this situation. I need to put
the
right actions
in the
right places
at the
right time
to keep me on the road to
recovery. I had to find my “good swing” and learn how to keep that good
swing from getting so far off that I couldn't get it back quickly.
LESSON 5
The key is to put the right actions in the right places, and execute them at
the right time to ensure we never get to the place from which we don't know
how to recover in a timely way.
Measurable Objectives: Right Actions, Right Places, and Right
Time
Part of the answer to putting the
right actions
in the
right places
and executing
them at the
right time
is locating traditional trouble spots where I can sense a
potential problem and correct it before it occurs. This was my goal on the golf
project—to get my game where it needed to be, and then to teach myself how
to keep my game from degrading to that point of lost control using key
check-
points.
This would allow me to play with the level of confidence desired
during the marathon golf week in Williamsburg.
So what kind of a plan did I put in place to help reach this goal?
I needed to put changes in place that would allow me to detect what my
teacher could detect in five minutes. Now I needed to do it myself. I needed
to teach myself to do it in the middle of a round of golf so my game never
