Upside down management

[Richard Moore]

Greetings,

A friend sent me a link to a very interesting program that aired on BBC Radio 4. It's an interview with John Timpson, Chairman of a chain of shoe-repair / key-cutting shops in the UK. He runs this family business according to principles he calls 'upside-down management'. 

What this means is that each shop has the freedom to run their business as they see fit. They can set their own prices, make their own special deals, set up their own promotionals, etc. They have Area Management teams, whose job is to support the shops, handling accounting, training, etc. And everyone gets a bonus every week, based on performance. Here's the interview:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lvlv3

I was pleased to find out about Timpson, as his 'upside-down management' principles are the same principles I put into the development model. Every entity a semi-autonomous worker's co-op, support entities, and bonuses. As they say in the interview, the principles are just common sense.

cheers,

richard

http://groups.google.com/group/credit-bank-model/files