Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

When eBay (EBAY) implied that cable executives had been obstacles to the new Media Marketplace they've created and been pushing, it didn't fly too well with those hearing they were being pointed out as the problem.

A lot of the problem stemmed from allowing a small amount of people in the business to test it out, while leaving others to make decisions based upon those experiences. They didn't buy that at all. They rightly wanted to test the systems themselves.

In response to the widening gap, the committee made up of those pushing the system chose David Grubb, the soft-spoken director of Microsoft's (MSFT) global media to make a peace offering.

Grubb admitted that there had been failure to communicate in a right manner to those with vested interest and proposed that now there is a product ready to test, after it's done, they can get together face-to-face to clear the air.

"It's important that we do a better job of communicating, more clearly and directly, about exactly what we see this marketplace helping us solve," said Grubb. "And I'm not surprised that there are questions and issues around some of this."

He added that the cable executives were justified in being upset over the way things were wrongly handled.

Part of what happened was the comittee continued to postpone targeted dates for offering a pilot for review by the companies. So when the committee asked for a decision, they were asking it to be made by blind faith, while not communicating continually on what was happening during the process.

A good lesson in making sure that we communicate during all steps of the process with our partners. The idea of blaming the potential users of the system wasn't a very smart move either. It's not too good of a way to build a partnership by putting down your partners in the public eye.

Obviously there was a huge gap in keeping the cable execs in the know. It has opened some unnecessary wounds that will take the process a little longer and harder to move ahead as a result. The lack of open communication is the underlying culprit in this whole ordeal -something we all need to take a continuous heed to.