Geoff,
I would point you to the books of Jan Carlzon who took over a very
troubled Scandinavian Airlines System and brought it back to profitability
and customer applause.
One thing he did with middle managers was to challenge them (in workshop
settings) to go back to their workplaces and make a list of the major
things their people spent time doing. Then, for each one, the
manager/team was to describe how that work helped to create a positive
experience for a customer (at a "Moment of Truth" as he called it.) For
that work which couldn't be plausibly connected to creating a positive
customer experience he ordered the managers to "stop doing it --
immediately!" because, as he put is, "Why should we be producing things
the customers don't want to buy?"
--"John Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>