The Bee Hive

A recent rerun of the HBO television series “Band of Brothers,” the story of an infantry division in World War Two, got me thinking in new directions. What impressed me the second time I saw the show was how well the men of Easy Company came together and were willing to commit to doing their duty. also evident was their unwillingness to accept poor leadership, as demonstrated by the first line supervisors resigning from the company to force higher command to address the issue of an incompetent company commander.

Successful organizations resolve their cross-functional business issues using project teams with specific objectives and deliverables. Such project teams focus on subjects like introducing new products, resolving perennial production issues, achieving greater customer satisfaction, and so on. They may be calles a task force, SWAT team, productivity team, or anything else that infers an aggressive approach to problem solving.