Guerrilla 'Victory' Stories
Here is an overview of all Guerrilla Victory' stories.
Some stories have been kept anonymous at the request of the contributor.
And you have the chance to share your own story too (scroll down).
The Complaint Quarter
From moaning to ownership. In one meeting. #Rule-Mafia
Situation: A hospital ward is stuck in a culture of complaining. A new manager knows she needs to act fast - but without a major reorganization or lengthy management program.
The guerrilla move: In her very first meeting, she introduces a "complaint quarter": a flipchart, fifteen minutes, everyone gets to call out what's broken. Three pages fill up fast - a supplier who's consistently a day late, slow internal procedures, coffee that's been terrible for years. Then: pick one problem, put two people on it. Week one: two colleagues call the supplier and confront him with the real consequences of his delays. Week two: 50 euros cash for two others to sort out a decent coffee machine.
Result: Two months later, most of the list is resolved - not by management, but by the team itself. The atmosphere shifts. People discover they can actually take things into their own hands.
Worth trying if... you have a team that complains but doesn't take ownership. The trick: turn complaints into small, concrete actions - immediately, with a name attached.
Anti-Bureaucracy Week
The rule that disappears the moment you have to follow it yourself. #Rule-Mafia
Situation: At a large company, head office managers are increasingly out of touch with what's actually happening on the work floor. Procedures that seem logical from behind a desk end up strangling day-to-day operations.
The guerrilla move: IKEA makes it a standing tradition: Anti-Bureaucracy Week. Every manager - including the CEO - spends one week a year working on the shop floor. CEO Anders Dahlvig put it this way: "In February I was unloading trucks and selling beds and mattresses." No exceptions, no symbolic hour. A full week, in operations - checkout, warehouse, customer service.
Result: Managers run straight into the rules they themselves created. A returns procedure that looks like three steps on paper turns out to require seven actions in practice. That kind of insight can't be captured in a report or a PowerPoint.
Worth trying if... you sense that decisions are being made by people who haven't been close to the work floor in years. Sometimes the best anti-bureaucracy measure is simply: go and stand there yourself.
Colruyt's Work Simplifiers
The people who get paid to cut rules. #Rule-Mafia
Situation: Processes grow. Rules pile up. What once made sense becomes dead weight over time - but nobody has the time, the authority, or the courage to do anything about it.
The guerrilla move: Colruyt Group creates a dedicated role: the work simplifier. Not an outside consultant, but an internal employee with one mandate: find ways every day to make work simpler - for colleagues and for customers. The core question they ask is straightforward: "How do we work now? How could it be better?" They observe and measure on the work floor itself. And critically: they also have the authority to actually implement the improvements together with staff - without endless approval rounds.
Result: Work simplification is now in Colruyt Group's DNA, and has spread across production, supply chain, retail stores, and support departments. The role has existed for decades and is still being actively recruited for.
Worth trying if... everyone knows where the inefficiencies are, but nobody has the time or mandate to address them. Sometimes the guerrilla move is: make it someone's official job.
Three Hours for a Dentist Appointment
The rule that did exactly what it was meant to prevent. #Rule-Mafia
Situation: At a mid-sized company, HR notices that some employees seem to be away an awfully long time for dental appointments. The instinct: there needs to be a rule. Maximum three hours away for a medical visit.
The guerrilla move: The rule is introduced - and immediately produces the opposite effect. Before it existed, staying away for a whole afternoon was the exception; most people were back within an hour and a half. But from the day the three-hour limit exists, everyone disappears for three hours. The limit doesn't become a ceiling - it becomes a norm. This phenomenon even has a name in behavioral science: the Peltzman effect - the paradox where a rule steers behavior in exactly the wrong direction. The real guerrilla move is what comes next: scrapping the rule. No fanfare, no communication campaign - just removing the procedure.
Result: After it was scrapped, the vast majority were back within an hour and a half again. The situation before the rule turned out to be better than the situation with it. More control had led to less trust - and more absence.
Worth trying if... you're tempted to introduce a procedure to manage an exception. First ask yourself: am I turning an exception into a new norm?
The Loophole Letter at the Police
When legal wasn't allowed to say no - but had to find a solution. #Yes-But Brigade
Situation: Rotterdam Police want to tackle vandalism on New Year's Eve. They already have a good idea who the likely offenders are. The plan: send them a warning by text. Immediately, the yes-but brigade steps in - GDPR doesn't allow directly contacting those individuals. Legal blocks it. Sending a letter with a direct form of address isn't allowed either - you can't accuse someone without evidence.
The guerrilla move: The manager gives legal a different brief: not "tell me why this can't be done," but "make sure I don't get prosecuted - and solve it." The result is a letter with an opening line that has since become legendary: "If you know someone, who knows someone, who might be considering committing vandalism on New Year's Eve - please let them know that we will be enforcing particularly strictly this year." Three degrees of separation. Legally watertight. And yet landing in exactly the right letterboxes.
Result: The letter reaches its target - and the convoluted sentence becomes a classic example of creative navigation within the rules.
Worth trying if... you treat legal, compliance, or HR as the end of the road rather than the starting point. The question isn't "is this allowed?" - it's "how do we solve this within the rules?"
The Cleaner Who Outperformed the Doctors
Why the solution was in the mop bucket, not the lab. #Yes-But Brigade
Situation: At Pittsburgh Veterans Hospital, an MRSA infection keeps coming back. Doctors and nurses follow the protocols - and still. The yes-but brigade is ready: not enough staff, patients not following the rules, a problem too complex for a simple solution.
The guerrilla move: The hospital organizes conversations with everyone - from surgeons to cleaning staff. Cleaner Edward Yates notices something no one else had seen: non-isolation rooms are being cleaned superficially, while isolation rooms get thorough treatment. But MRSA bacteria don't read the sign on the door. He develops his own protocol, explains it to colleagues - many of whom don't speak fluent English - using drawings, and adjusts the cleaning approach. No management decision, no budget. Just someone who sees what's going wrong and fixes it.
Result: The MRSA infection rate drops by more than 50% in just over a year.
Worth trying if... you assume the solution has to come from the experts. Sometimes the cleaner sees what the doctor doesn't - because nobody ever thought to ask.
The Shrimp Secret in Vietnam
How one different question led to 80% less malnutrition. #Yes-But Brigade
Situation: In the 1990s, Vietnam is facing widespread child malnutrition. The government wants to intervene, but immediately hits the classic yes-buts - not enough money, not enough resources, cultural habits that are hard to change, a problem too big to fix quickly.
The guerrilla move: Researcher Jerry Sternin ignores the blockers and asks one different question: which children are healthy, in the same poor villages, with the same resources? He discovers that some mothers feed their children differently - small pieces of shrimp and sweet potato that aren't traditionally considered children's food, given three or four times a day instead of twice. No extra money, no outside food. Just a different behavior that already existed. Then, rather than having an expert explain what to do, they ask those mothers to show other mothers directly - hands-on, in the kitchen.
Result: Within two years, malnutrition in the participating villages drops by 80%. The program later spreads to other countries.
Worth trying if... you're stuck on "yes but, we don't have the resources for that." Sometimes the solution is already inside your own organization - with someone who simply does things differently, without anyone having noticed.
We Started a Little Club
What if you just didn't organize it yourself? #Doubt Dictator
Situation: Driesen is a group of twenty smaller companies with around eight hundred employees in total. HR wants to strengthen internal connections - but immediately runs into its own inner yes-but brigade: who's going to organize this? Do we have time for that? What if nobody joins?
The guerrilla move: Instead of rolling out a program themselves, they let go. Any employee can start a club around their own hobby or interest - with three simple conditions: a minimum of eight participants, at least two events per year, and five hundred euros in budget from the organization. No further steering, no approval committee, no HR oversight.
Result: In a very short time, more than twenty clubs are launched - a chess club, a motorcycle club, even a band. Connections HR could never have designed or planned. The goal - informal contact between employees - is achieved without the organization hovering over it.
Worth trying if... you think you need to figure everything out before you start. Sometimes the guerrilla move is: give people a small framework and a small budget - and step aside.
My First Presentation in New Zealand
Yes but... I don't know anyone in New Zealand. #Doubt Dictator
Situation: A Belgian speaker (yours truly) has a naive ambition: give a presentation in New Zealand - the other side of the world. The problem is as simple as it is paralyzing: he doesn't know anyone there. The inner doubter whispers: who do you think you are, reaching out cold to strangers on the other side of the planet?
The guerrilla move: He goes to LinkedIn, types in the region "New Zealand" and the keywords "creativity and innovation" - and gets thousands of profiles. He picks the first ten. Using their name and company, he finds an email address via Google in thirty seconds. He sends a personal message: would they be up for a virtual coffee, or willing to host him if he ever made it to New Zealand? Ten emails sent. Four replies. Two serious conversations. Nine months later, he's standing on a stage in New Zealand. (PS: just enough to cover his plane ticket.)
Result: Since then, he's been back to New Zealand six times and has worked in more than forty countries. Note: this LinkedIn technique hasn't worked in every country - but that's precisely the point of experimenting.
Worth trying if... you're waiting for the right moment, the right network, or the right permission. Sometimes the only obstacle is the doubter in your own head. Anyone can send a few emails.
When the Traffic Lights Disappeared
Fewer signs. Fewer deaths. #Rule-Mafia
Situation: In the 1980s, Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman faces a problem: a dangerous intersection in the Frisian village of Oudehaske. The obvious solution is right there - more signs, more rules, more signage. Monderman thinks in exactly the opposite direction.
The guerrilla move: He removes the traffic lights. The signs come down. The lane markings disappear. Pedestrians, cyclists, and cars share the same space with no explicit rules. His reasoning: when nobody knows who has right of way, people start making eye contact again. Responsibility emerges where rules end.
Result: Accidents drop sharply. The concept - Shared Space - spreads across Europe. Cities including Londonderry, Copenhagen, and Berlin follow. Monderman is invited to speak worldwide. His provocative conclusion: "The more rules, the less responsibility."
Worth trying if... your instinct is to reach for a procedure, a rule, or an extra approval. Sometimes a rule protects nobody - it just relieves people of the need to think. Ask yourself: what happens if this rule isn't there tomorrow?
The Rotating Safety Manager
From control to ownership. Without a safety coordinator. #Yes-But Brigade
Situation: A production department has been struggling with safety culture for years. Wearing helmets, storing equipment properly, connecting cables correctly - it never quite sticks. The yes-but brigade is ready: isn't safety the safety coordinator's job? Do these people have the expertise for it? And do we really have time for this on the floor?
The guerrilla move: Instead of adding more control or another procedure, the team flips the responsibility. Each week, one team member gets the title of "safety manager" - rotating, everyone gets a turn. That person gets fifteen minutes a day to walk around and note what they notice: a power cable not properly connected, clutter in a walkway, a missing safety sign. At the end of the week: a short stand-up where the safety manager shares their findings with the team. No report, no sanctions - just: here's what I saw this week.
Result: Engagement around safety rises significantly. People who have taken a turn on the round start seeing the work floor differently afterwards - they keep noticing things. The issues that get flagged are exactly the things an external safety coordinator would never spot. The system works so well it's since shifted from weekly to monthly.
Worth trying if... you notice that safety rules exist on paper but don't live in practice. The trick: don't give people a rule to follow - give them a role to step into. Ownership doesn't come from control. It comes from moving responsibility to the people who know the work.
The Best 1-Star Review in the Netherlands
How to beat the system by not playing it. #Doubt Dictator
Situation: Every business chases five-star reviews. More stars, more visibility, more new customers. The inner doubter whispers: what if customers write something negative? What will people think if our score is low? We can't afford to look bad on Google.
The guerrilla move: Martijn Verspeek, owner of an installation company in the Brabant town of Valkenswaard, takes a hard look at the review system - and reaches a radical conclusion: five-star reviews have become worthless. You don't know who's writing them. Companies beg for them. You can just buy them. And let's be honest: the reviews people actually read are the one-star reviews. So he asks his customers - his fans - to do exactly that: give us one star on Google. But write the most glowing text you can underneath it. A 1-star review with a fan letter beneath it: the system breaks down, and that's exactly the point. Google isn't happy about it. They remove his profile. He starts again.
Result: A Google rating of 2.1 - with reviews bursting with enthusiasm. New customers don't come via Google; they come via other fans. The company has a waiting list of people who want to work there and customers who are fans - without spending a single euro on Google Ads.
Worth trying if... you feel like you have to play along with a system you don't trust. Sometimes the guerrilla move isn't improving the system - it's ignoring it and following your own logic. The inner doubter asks: what will people think of us? Martijn's answer: my fans know exactly what they think. And they write it underneath a 1-star.
More info: https://www.martijnverspeek.nl/
CIA Simple Sabotage Field manual (1944)
You can download the full manual as a PDF right HERE. The last 5 pages cover sabotage techniques within organizational structures. Enjoy.
A team. No manager.
From control to trust. Give the team the keys. #RuleMafia
Situation: Traditional home care is organised around managers, planners and protocols. Nurses carry out decisions made elsewhere. Buurtzorg founder Jos de Blok wondered: what if we turned the whole thing upside down? What if professionals organised their own work?
The guerrilla move: In 2007, Buurtzorg started with one small team of nurses. No team leader making the schedule. No manager deciding who does what. The team organised itself: who works when, how care is divided, and how they collaborate with other healthcare professionals. A coach provides support when needed, but doesn’t take over the steering wheel. The experiment then grew as other nurses saw that it worked and wanted to try the same way of working.
The result: What started with one small team grew into hundreds of self-managing teams. These teams are still at the heart of the Buurtzorg model today, with autonomy as the starting point. Support is built around them.
Worth trying if... notice that your organisation keeps adding rules, managers and control mechanisms just to get the work done. Ask yourself: “What if we did the exact opposite and simply gave the team more responsibility?”
Source: https://www.buurtzorgnederland.com/organisatie/
Set your own salary.
What do I earn? I decide. #Rule-Mafia
Situation: At Semco, the employer traditionally decided how much people earned. Until Ricardo Semler asked: why? If employees are mature enough to do their jobs, perhaps they are mature enough to decide what they are worth too.
The guerrilla move: Semco allowed employees to set their own salaries. They were given insight into what colleagues earned and could use market data to support their decision. The proposed salaries were then made visible to everyone.
The result: The experiment became part of Semco’s radical approach to employee democracy. Employees didn’t just determine their own salaries; they also had a say in who became their manager and how the work was organised.
Worth trying if... notice that your organisation wants people to take responsibility while still making every decision for them. The trick: don’t just give people responsibility. Give them the information and the space to make their own decisions.
Source: https://semcostyle.com/ricardo-semler-the-radical-boss-who-proved-that-workplace-democracy-works/
A complaint? Start a business.
No PowerPoint. No project team. A startup instead. #Rule-Mafia
Situation: Customers complain online about something they are missing. In a traditional company, the complaint ends up with customer service, product development or marketing. And then the meetings begin.
The guerrilla move: Three young Haier employees spotted online complaints from pregnant women who found cinema seats uncomfortable. Instead of waiting for an official product development process, they decided to start a business themselves. Through Haier, they found funding, technology partners and manufacturers.
The result: They developed a new cinema concept with comfortable beds, which was subsequently brought to market. A customer complaint became not a report, but the starting point for a new business.
Worth trying if you... work in an organisation where ideas mostly end up in PowerPoints. The trick: don’t just give people permission to have an idea. Give them a way to build something with it.
Source: https://corporate.haier-europe.com/about-us/our-culture/
Merge. Then ditch the rules.
132 rules became 39. The rest were allowed to retire. #Rule-Mafia
Situation: In 2012, four municipalities merged to form Hollands Kroon. Four organisations, four sets of rules, four ways of doing things. The easy solution: combine everything into one even thicker rulebook.
The guerrilla move: Hollands Kroon did the opposite. When merging their local regulations, they asked for every single rule: do we actually still need this? The answer was surprisingly often no. Instead of 132 rules, they eventually kept just 39. Rules covering things like public urination, begging and shopping trolleys disappeared. Apparently, not everything we consider undesirable needs to be forbidden.
The result: 70% fewer rules, along with a different starting point: less control and more trust in the common sense of residents. The municipality wanted to create more room for initiative, freedom and responsibility.
Worth trying if you... work in an organisation that keeps collecting more and more rules. The trick: treat change as an opportunity to clear things out rather than add more.
Source: https://nos.nl/op3/artikel/2033106-gemeente-hollands-kroon-schrapt-70-procent-van-de-regels
The five-word policy
No travel rules. No expense police. Just: “Act in Netflix’s best interests.” #Rule-Mafia
Situation: Travel and expense policies can grow into books full of rules, limits and approvals. Netflix asked itself: do we really need to tell adults what they can and cannot do with company money?
The guerrilla move: Netflix scrapped its formal travel & expense policy. In its place came five words: “Act in Netflix’s best interests.” No fixed travel rules or endless approvals. Employees were given the freedom to make their own decisions — and the responsibility to use their common sense.
The result: Fewer rules, less control and more responsibility for employees and managers. And remarkably, the five-word policy is still part of Netflix today.
Worth trying if you... have a rulebook for things people could perfectly well decide for themselves. The trick: remove the rule and replace control with responsibility.
Welcome to Tony's. here's your contract.
No small print. No legal handbook. One page. #Rule-Mafia
Situation: An employment contract is often a legal brick full of small print, dos and don’ts, and clauses explaining what happens when things go wrong. Tony’s Chocolonely asked: does a new employee really need to start there?
The guerrilla move: Together with an employment lawyer, Tony’s threw the traditional contract overboard. Much of the legal jargon and “you’re not allowed to…” clauses disappeared. What remained was one clear page with the key agreements, Tony’s values and, above all, plenty of trust and common sense.
The result: An employment contract that felt more like a “ticket of trust” than a legal threat. And the approach was positively received by new employees.
Worth trying if you... design processes mainly around the question: “What if someone gets it wrong?” The trick: turn it around and design from a place of trust. What could you remove?
Source: https://www.corporate-rebels.com/blog/rethinking-the-employment-contract
Paid to leave.
Stay. Or take $2,000 home.
Situation: Hiring a new employee costs time, money and energy. So naturally, you want people to stay. Zappos turned that logic upside down: during an intensive onboarding process, new employees got the chance to discover whether the culture was genuinely right for them.
The guerrilla move: After the training, employees received a remarkable offer: $2,000 to leave. No difficult conversations, no guilt trip. Anyone accepting the offer could leave with money in their pocket. Those who stayed made a conscious choice for Zappos and its culture.
The result: Zappos filtered out people who were looking for a job, but not necessarily for a job at Zappos. The company saw it as a win-win: better to let someone leave early than invest months or years in someone who ultimately turns out not to be a good fit.
Worth trying if you... spend most of your energy trying to keep people on board. The trick: sometimes give people an honest, attractive reason to choose for themselves. Those who stay may be making a more conscious choice.
Source: https://hbr.org/podcast/2008/05/harvard-business-ideacast-96-w
Hooray, it failed!
From hiding mistakes to celebrating them. With a coffee on the side. #Doubt Dictator
Situation: In many organisations, the instinct is to fix mistakes as quickly as possible — and preferably make sure nobody notices them. Spotify turned that reflex around: if you want to innovate, you also need to make room for failure.
The guerrilla move: Spotify introduced Fail Fikas: informal moments where teams shared, celebrated and explored what they had learned from a failure. Some teams went even further and created a Fail Wall featuring their mistakes and the lessons they had learned.
The result: Failure became not just something to avoid, but a way to learn faster. That principle is still part of Spotify’s culture of experimentation today: an experiment showing that something doesn’t work can be just as valuable as one that produces a successful result.
Worth trying if you... ask for innovation while punishing mistakes. The trick: make “failed” a legitimate outcome. And have a coffee to celebrate it.
Source: https://www.fearlessculture.design/blog-posts/spotify-culture-design-canvas
Today you're allowed to roast everything.
From unspoken criticism to concrete improvements. #Rule-Mafia
Situation: Nobody enjoys telling colleagues that the product they have spent months working on is actually not that useful, beautiful or logical. So small frustrations can simply stick around.
The guerrilla move: At 37signals, they organised a Product Roast. Everyone was invited to brutally roast an aspect of their own products in front of the group: a confusing user flow, an ugly interface, unclear copy... Everything was fair game.
The result: By turning criticism into the assignment for a moment, the fear of sounding negative disappeared. People discovered problems that might otherwise have remained unspoken and got concrete inspiration to improve the product.
Worth trying if you... notice that people see problems but would rather not mention them. The trick: for once, make criticism not a risk, but an assignment.
Write your own job description
No job description from HR. A promise to your colleagues instead. #Rule-Mafia
Situation: In most organisations, HR decides what goes into your job description. Tasks, responsibilities, reporting lines... neatly defined before you even start.
The guerrilla move: At Morning Star, every employee writes their own Personal Commercial Mission: what do I want to contribute to the company? They then work with colleagues to create a CLOU, setting out concrete agreements about responsibilities, results and collaboration.
The result: No traditional job description. No manager handing out tasks. Colleagues agree among themselves who takes on what and hold each other accountable.
Worth trying if you... notice that people mainly look at their job description to figure out what they should and shouldn’t do. The trick: let people first define the value they want to add themselves.
A baby under your desk.
No childcare? Then let’s create it ourselves. #Rule-Mafia
Situation: In the early 1980s, Patagonia employees struggled to combine work and raising children. Some simply brought their babies to the office and put them under their desks.
The guerrilla move: Instead of building an HR policy full of leave arrangements and forms, Patagonia started childcare on its premises. At first, it was literally a simple babysitting service in a trailer. When one child wasn’t picked up after school one day, the company even bought a van to bring children home from school.
The result: The childcare service grew into a fully-fledged centre that is still part of Patagonia’s approach to employee wellbeing today.
Worth trying if you... keep trying to solve a problem with rules, while the real solution might simply be to organise something concrete.
Source: https://eu.patagonia.com/be/en/stories/culture/community/can-mothers-work/story-29362.html
Go surfing.
The waves aren’t going to wait until your meeting is over. #Rule-Mafia
Situation: Traditional working hours determine when you work. Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard thought that was rather odd for people who like spending time outdoors.
The guerrilla move: Patagonia gave employees flexible working hours so they could go surfing, skiing or climbing when conditions were right. As long as the work got done, the clock didn’t have to decide when you worked.
The result: Work and private life became less rigidly separated. Patagonia made flexibility not an exception, but part of the way it worked.
Worth trying if you... still confuse presence with performance. The trick: assess what people contribute, not just when they are sitting behind their desks.
Source: https://www.patagonia.com/static/on/demandware.static/-/Library-Sites-PatagoniaShared/default/dw2220fd20/PDF-US/LMPGS-READERS_GUIDE_v3.pdf
If they don't come to school...
...then bring the school to them. #Rule-Mafia
Situation: Children living on the streets are not easily reached through a traditional school. They have no fixed place, no stable home environment and often no access to formal education.
The guerrilla move: For his Product Design thesis, Arnoud Raskin asked a different question: what if the school simply comes to the children? He designed a mobile school that could be set up on the streets and go directly to the people it was meant to reach.
The result: In 1999, the first mobile schools were launched in Guatemala and Bolivia. Today, MobileSchool.org operates internationally, with its methods active in dozens of countries.
Worth trying if you... have a target group that doesn’t fit your existing approach. The trick: change the approach, not the target group.
Source: https://www.mobileschool.org/nl/news/mobile-school-turns-20
The cost of control was higher than the problem
A pair of gloves. One absurd rule. And a simple calculation. #Rule-Mafia
Situation: At FAVI, an employee needed permission from their manager before getting new work gloves. Get a coupon. Go to the warehouse. Wait. And only then get a new pair of gloves.
The guerrilla move: In the 1980s, CEO Jean-François Zobrist calculated what that control actually cost. The employee was away from their machine for about ten minutes. The machine cost 600 francs per hour. The gloves? 5.80 francs. So: get rid of the rule.
The result: FAVI stopped designing rules around the question “How do we prevent someone from taking advantage?” and started from a place of trust in employees.
Worth trying if you... create rules to control a handful of exceptions. First calculate what that control is costing the rest of the organisation.
"Do you have a better idea?"
From a meeting everyone had given up on to an experiment that lasted four years. #Yes-But Brigade
Situation: The weekly one-hour project meeting had become both boring and ineffective. After fifteen minutes, everyone had mentally checked out. On work-from-home days, there was also little contact between colleagues. Someone suggested an alternative: short online daily stand-ups of no more than 15 minutes. The response? Mostly a lot of yes-buts.
The guerrilla move: Ingrid, who was the manager at the time, asked one simple question: “Do you have a better idea?”
No response. So instead of endlessly debating the new idea, she decided to give it a serious four-month trial.
Not because everyone was convinced. But because the alternative was simply to keep doing something everyone knew wasn’t working.
The first two months weren’t perfect. The ground rules were adjusted. Then they looked again at what was working.
The result: Four years later, the daily stand-ups are still going. Ten to fifteen minutes. The list is reviewed. If a project needs more time, the colleagues involved simply arrange a separate conversation.
Worth trying if you... only want to implement a good idea once everyone is convinced. The trick: you don’t have to prove beforehand that it will work. Agree on how long you’ll give it a serious try, give it room to improve, and evaluate afterwards.
"Here's $2,000. Do something good with it."
From “I’ll just ask my manager” to “I’ll handle it myself.” #Doubt Dictator
Situation: A hotel guest has a problem. In most organisations, a familiar ritual follows: “I’ll just ask my manager.” Ritz-Carlton wanted to do things differently.
The guerrilla move: Employees were given the freedom to spend up to $2,000 per guest, per situation to solve a problem or positively surprise a guest. No manager approval required. Simply decide for yourself what was best in that moment.
The result: The $2,000 was rarely used in full. But the amount made one thing crystal clear: we trust you to make your own decisions. Employees were given not only responsibility for the guest, but also the resources to do something about it.
Worth trying if you... give people responsibility but send them straight back to their manager for every decision. The trick: don’t just give people the confidence to act. Give them the room to actually do it.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2013/09/18/empowered-employees-vs-brand-standards-the-customer-experience-needs-both/
