Tuesday, May 21, 2019

About that coordination thing ....



We're all supposed to coordinate. That's written somewhere in the PM literature and taught in bureaucracy school everywhere. And so I was impressed with this bit of wit(*):
"Successful coordinating mechanisms depend on mutuality. The greatest chance of success derives from mutual benefit tied to sufficiently high priority programs
Lesson learned: you haven't coordinated if the other person hasn't acknowledged AND hasn't offered something in return. The "sound of one hand clapping" and "coordination without acknowledgement" are about equivalent.
... "[beware of the] weak coordinating level of [just] interaction rather than [the stronger leverage] in budgeting and policy"
Be consequential: Well, no one wants the label of "weak coordinator", so let's all go for "strong"; to wit: let's spend our energy and influence being consequential.

"Budgeting and policy" are C-suite speak.
You, on the other hand, may be working execution rather than forming policy.
Nonetheless, even at the execution level, there may be more areas of leverage than 'money and resources' and a hammer on direction (strategy), but those are two pretty good ones.

Thus, if you're not "coordinating" in those areas, what is it you're coordinating about that is consequential?

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(*)Dr. L. Parker Temple, III
Policy advisor to President Reagan


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