Welch's 21 Steps to Management Greatness - 12
Eliminate Boundaries
As business leaders, one of the things we can do to frustrate our workers is to ask them to do extraordinary things, and then have a bunch of things within the makeup of the company that get in the way of them doing it.
If people are expected to do the impossible, everything that's in their way must be removed as quickly as possible if they're going to acheive it.
Welch described it this way:
"'Boundarylessness' describes an open organization free of bureaucracy and anything else that prevents the free flow of ideas, people, decisions, etc. Informality, fun and speed are the qualities found in a boundaryless organization."
So the question is how do we identify obstructions? Look for anything within the business that interferes with the "free flow of ideas, people, decisions, etc. Nothing does more to discourage and hinder our people than not being able to focus on the task at hand which motivates them, than to have to spend a bunch of their time removing obstacles so they can go forward.
This will kill the joy, fun, speed and satisfaction of doing a job that is a great challenge and whose challenge wants to be met by people.
If we commit ourselves to this "removal" of boundaries within our businesses, we'll see workers that we may have thought of as mediocre, rising to greatness within the company.
So if something's not flowing, look for the cause and get rid of it. Your people will respond and thank you for it. It can be done, Welch made it happen with one of the best companies in the world, but the reason it was one of the best was because the passionately followed through on removing everything out of the way he was aware of, and expected every manager in the company to do the same.
Other Jack Welch Resources:
Jack Welch's advice to MIT Sloan students
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