Are Your Employees Giving You Problems or Solutions?

I’ve been reading Skunk Works(Affiliate) by Ben Rich over the last week. Skunk Works is a super-secret Lockheed division where great minds work on advanced aerospace and defense contracts. Ben Rich was the leader of this operation from 1975 to 1991, and worked on projects like the first stealth bomber.

One of the reasons that Skunk Works is so successful is the great leadership structure that is setup. Smart people are allowed to get work done, and are involved in the project all the way through. Unfortunately, the government isn’t setup the same way.

From Skunk Works -

One that particularly sticks in my craw occurred when President Johnson first announced in 1964 the existence of the RS-71, the Air Force two-seater Blackbird. That’s right, RS-71 was its official designation, but Johnson accidentally turned it around and called it the “SR-71.” Instead of putting out a brief correction, the Air Force decided not to call attention to a very minor mistake by the commander in chief and ordered us to change about twenty-nine thousand blueprints and drawings at a cost of thousands of dollars so that they would read “SR-71″ and not “RS-71.”

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating again and again - Do your employees come to you with mistakes as they happen with possible solutions already laid out, or do they work to keep you insulated from the mistakes because of a culture of fear?