At toll booths, boom barriers reflect the behaviour of most organisations out there.
Employees approach the booth with ideas, advancements, experiments, wild bets.
Someone, supposedly capable but mostly simply a checker, is siting there. Accepts some form of exchange – money in the real world; ideas, presentations, data in organisations.
And the boom barrier is raised. Allowing for the employee to get past.
Before lowering itself again for the next employee.
Day in and day out – the same “process”. Multiple booths, multiple checkers, multiple employees. But all allowed one a time.
And then someone decided to introduce tags.
Something you do (upfront payment in the real world) fetches you a badge. Where you don’t seek permission anymore. The boom barrier is never lowered on you. Till you keep paying that payment.
Unfortunately, just as in the real world, less than 5% of the universe gets this tag. 95% still go through this painful sequential process.
It’s ironical, right? The toll road was built for a speedy, unrestricted passage. And then someone, to establish importance and authority, choked the system at the toll booth.
As a founder/CEO/manager – while you constantly aim to build toll roads, ask yourself how many toll booths are you adding. And why? What will it take to give everyone a tag?
What will you give up? And what will you gain?
[This post by Ankur Warikoo first appeared on LinkedIn and has been reproduced with permission.]
