Guts and Authority
I was working for a silicon wafer company in South Carolina, sitting with a group of management and young engineers as the VP of Manufacturing visited our plant and was taking questions. Lots of good back and forth discussion, then an engineer a couple of years out of school asked, “Why haven’t you looked at implementing xxxx technology?” (I can’t remember specifically what it was).
The VP shot back, “Let me ask you, “Why haven’t YOU performed an analysis on implementing xxxx technology?”
The engineer stumbled a bit and replied, “Umm, I don’t have the authority”
I’ll always remember the VP’s response, “One thing you all should learn… in this company, you run out of guts long before you run out of authority.”
Damn, I loved that culture!