structure versus buzz

I remember being at a management 'training' session in the Spanish hills when someone mooted the possibility of restructuring the company in order to hit some insanely optimistic sales forecasts. "Oh no," wailed the older, wiser financial chief, "Not more structure, anything but that!"

People love tinkering with structures and ignoring the people in the structures. In fact I suspect one is either a structure person or a people person. Good people can make any structure, however crap, work. Bad people in the best structure will fail.

People pay vast sums to management experts to restructure companies- ie. find hidden value and sell it off; over work people who were previously happy and now will be stressed...because the result improves the bottom line it attracts the robot-vampires in the world...

Actually worrying about structure should be way down the list. Buzz is far more important. If there is a buzz, a distinct energy about a person or project good things will probably happen. A buzz is infectious, it is the obvious evidence of energy somewhere. I include everything here from superficial hysteria and hype to a genuine enthusiasm about something valuable and useful.

Go where the energy is.