Sometimes managers get too comfortable with their jobs and build internal walls to control knowledge in the hopes of making them indispensable to the company. The result is the company begins to stagnate.
To combat this thinking and spur innovation, Jorma Ollila, CEO of Nokia, implemented a job swap program. Nokia adopted an everyone-out-of-your-comfort-zone management style and regularly practiced managerial musical chairs to keep the company fresh and breaking down silos.
This practice created a certain amount of chaos and a sense of urgency, forcing managers to learn from each other as they learned how the other half worked. This practice, although a risky gamble, paid off for Nokia as it went from ten billion in revenue in 1997 to over twenty billion in just 2 years and assuming the #1 spot in the wireless phone industry by 1999. In another move to unlock the company’s potential, Nokia encouraged its workers to meet in unusual places to spur creativity.
My company did the documentation for Nokia during this time frame and during a meeting with several executives in Finland, our team was loaded onto a few dogsleds and whisked off to a remote cabin for a meeting. While I personally did not make this trip, I remember their stories and learned that sled dogs pooped and peed while running, creating a rather memorable ride for them.
Sometimes you have to take deliberate actions, perhaps unpopular ones, to get the best from employees and managers.
What can you do to shake things up in your business?
