UP IN THE AIR ABOUT TRIBAL WARFARE AT WORK?
A pedestrian walking through his home town suddenly hears a call from overhead. He looks up and sees a man waving to him from a balloon.
“Hey, where am I?” calls the man in the balloon.
“You are sixty feet in the air, drifting southwest at about 5 miles per hour,” responds the pedestrian.
“You’re an engineer, aren’t you?” shouts the man in the balloon.
“Yes, how did you know?” replies the pedestrian, scratching his head.
“Everything you told me is factually correct but perfectly useless,” calls the man in the air.
“Ha! You’re a senior manager, aren’t you?” shoots back the man on the street.
“Well, yes, but how did you know?” queries the man in the balloon.
“You are up in the air, completely lost and without a clue where you are but you want to blame me,” concludes the man on the ground.
And there you have it. Tribes. Sales versus marketing. Customer service versus sales. Operations versus customer service. And everybody versus senior management.