Comments on: When We Need to Slaughter Our Sacred Cows. Agile Companies Are Slaughterhouses.

By: Michael Okulik

Michael Okulik — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:14:26 +0000

Nice observation.

By: neil martin

neil martin — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 09:46:38 +0000

I used a piece form this article in a management meeting recently thanks very much.
neil

By: Bill Gaiennie

Bill Gaiennie — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:25:36 +0000

I tell this story in my classes, slightly different version though. In fact, I almost included it in this post. It is a good parable for the benefits of asking why so that we know the why behind the what. When people blindly do something simply because it has always been done that way, they are possibly maintaining allegiance to a sacred cow. This is not to say that if they were to find out the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’ that there would not be a good reason to follow the rule, but that without knowing we no longer have the ability to make that informed decision. Information is power and too often we are content continuing operating in environments that stifle our ability to know why. It starts simply with asking the proper questions, and more often than not, these questions can simply be stated as “why?”

By: Dad

Dad — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:03:57 +0000

Reminds me of the old joke: Young man married his girl and every time she roasted a ham for dinner, she cut off the end of the ham. This went on for a time until they went to the wife’s mother’s house. The young man asked the mother why his wife always cut the end off a ham before placing in the roasting pan, and the mother replied “when she was young, we were fairly poor and only had a small roasting pan”