I said,
"I certainly think there is an important role for teams because they are
the most aware of the complexities of their jobs. However, management has
a role to manage and control the total risk."
To which Ivan Blanco responded:
"This seems to go back to the traditional views of organization
and management. It assumes that (1) management knows or can identify the
total risk, (2) that management can control that total risk! If
management is not represented by a team of company experts, the total risk
may not be well or effectively identified. Even after this groups of
brains think about this, there is the possibility that the "total risk"
may not be really total! Give that the team of management brains can
identify the risk, then controlling it requires a lot of teamwork, because
it normally calls for the aggregation of knowledge from multiple sources."
I would never argue that management knows or can control risk, and I was
too glib in my initial statement. However, assuming there is some
rationality to the promotion process -- ie, managers understand their
business better than most -- then management can see the risks more
clearly than others, and they can manage it as well as or better than
others in the organization.
I agree enthusiastically that management _teams_ make a great deal of
sense. They are particularly difficult to implement, since managers by
definition excelled by and large as individual contributors. We are
asking them to give up the source of their success and adopt an untried
paradigm.
-- Rol Fessenden LL Bean, Inc 76234.3636@compuserve.com