Are employees laying bricks or building a cathedral?

There is an old story about three bricklayers, who were asked what they were doing.
The first said he was laying bricks.
The second said he was buliding a wall.
The third said he was building a cathedral.

Many people think they are doing their jobs when they do as the first bricklayer said. This is all most managers expect them to do. That is the cause of many problems and the reason that many managers are busy. They have to handle all of the issues caused by people who are simply laying bricks.

Just think of the third bricklayer. Is he likely to leave issues hanging? He is building a cathedral! You can't build a cathedral if you don't know what it takes to build a cathedral. The third bricklayer will do everything in his power to ensure that the cathedral will stand for centuries. The job of the manager is much simpler, as he knows that the bricklayer will not leave new issues to be dealt with every day.

What does this have to do with business?

I work with small businesses and help them to get a better return on their software investments. Invariably, I find them struggling with the software, because they may know how to use the software, but they don't understand how that helps the business to succeed. I work with them until they understand the business process and how they must work together to achieve the goals.

Two things happen:

• They understand what impact they are having on each other. They look for ways to eliminate negative impacts.
• They find that when they work together, the job is much easier for all of them. It is also easier on the manager, because he doesn't have to watch their every move.

At one company that I recently worked with, they found both those results. The comment made by one of the employees was that "he now understood all of the layers of the BIG MAC and why they were necessary".

This company got out of their silos and started to work together to achieve better results for their company as welll as made their own jobs easier.