The Business Machine
First we need a way to picture a larger company to help us
understand the analogy I intend on using here. Large companies can be pictured
like a giant machine filled with gears of various size that interface with
other gears in different ways. Some gears only interact with the overall
machine every now and then, while others interact constantly. There can be
entire sections of the machine that operate independently except for an
occasional and infrequent interaction.
Each gear is a person and each grouping of gears is a
department. Some gears move very fast with a lot of input and output, while
others move slower with minimal input and minimal output. Stepping back and
looking at the entire machine, we can see that each gear impacts the overall
system in some measureable way. Would the entire machine come to a grinding
halt if some small gear was removed? Probably not, but the output would be
different.
The Cog Material Benefit
Now let’s look at an individual gears, we see that they are
each made of different materials. We can think of a more expensive material used
for a gear as one that is more important to the overall system. It’s costly to
replace and any time that the gear isn’t in the machine the output is vastly
changed until it is replaced at great cost. This doesn’t always have to be an
important manager or executive, but someone who is critical and hard to
replace, like a head programmer or the leading salesperson.
Other gears will be made of plastic, will be small and have redundancy
so if it fails the overall output may not change in any real measureable quantity.
These gears will be spread out all over the machine interacting in different
ways with different gears. To replace these gears you may only have to walk
over to the parts drawer and swap it out quickly if needed.
Tying of Gears and
Men
Hopefully you can see the machine/business analogy
illustrated above in terms of how you fit into your company. Just to make sure
I’ll bring this full circle and cover some simple examples of how positions are
analogous to certain types of gears.
Someone that processes documents with a simple set of rules
for approval and rejection would be a plastic gear. The rules of the behavior
are simple to learn and follow. If a document processor were to quit, a
replacement could be up and running at previous capacity within a week or two.
The overall impact to the business as a whole would probably be so minimal as
to go unnoticed.
A person who is the main subject matter expert for a
critical project would be a metal gear with system wide importance. If this
person were to leave the entire project would stop. The person could be
replaced, which would take a long time as far as training and knowledge, or the
team could try to reconfigure to make up for the lost knowledge and work
effort. In either case, a machine wide disturbance would be felt, with a
measurable difference in output.
There are also a select few within a company that can be so drastically
important that the entire machine could stop if they were removed. While this
is less likely as a company grows, it’s still possible. Is there anyone you
know at your company that everything has to go through? Someone that has all
the answers that no one else has? There is your gear made of the strongest and
most expensive stuff, a gear that may never be replaceable.
An Honest Material
Analysis
Think about the three types of gears above, and the infinite
range of gear types within them. Which are you? Step back and think about how
your work impacts the overall business. Once you have an honest appraisal of
how you impact your business you can determine how hard it is to replace you.
Are your duties repetitive? Was you training short and simple? If you go on
vacation does anyone notice a drop in output?
Honesty with your self is the most important part of this
process. Coming to terms with who you are in the machine will only help you
figure out your next move, which is to become a more expensive gear. Coerce the
machine to be more dependent on your gear’s functionality. If enough processes
become dependant on you, the overall machine can’t afford to have a simple
plastic gear in the position.
Start small in your aspirations to test the waters of
change. Not every machine wants to reconfigure, and if it doesn’t you should
take your gear and find a more flexible machine. It won’t take long for decision
makers to notice they have a plastic cog doing a metal cogs work.
Circling Back to
Commodities and Outsourcing
It should be obvious by now that a company is less likely to
outsource something that is not a commodity. A plastic gear is a commodity; a
complicated custom gear is not so easily commoditized. Be a complicated and
custom gear made of the most expensive material. Be someone your company would
have to be crazy to try and replace. Outsourcing a complicated position is …. well
… complicated!
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