“ If you have the right person on the right project, and they are absolutely dedicated to finding a solution – leave them alone. Tolerate their initiative and trust them.
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from http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/maskingtape.htm concerning the development of masking tape. It also echoes ideas brought up in ‘the trap’, whereby an incentivised bureaucracy and civil service under New Labour were allowed to use their initiative to do whatever they needed to reach targets, such as those within the NHS.
Unfortunately, as Curtis had it, the managers used their initiative to reach the targets by, essentially, cheating and not in order to meet the goals the targets were brought in to achieve.
There’s a fairly obvious lesson, there.
