Tight–Loose-Tight

I don’t usually regard The Apprentice as a ready source of business acumen. Still less The Apprentice You’re Fired. But a couple of weeks ago they had a chap on, forget his name – think he runs a chain of restaurants, who said something I thought was very sensible. He talked about his philosophy for team management. He said that he used a “Tight – Loose – Tight” approach.

• Tight – get your team together and make sure that everybody is absolutely clear about what you are all doing, the part that each person must play in the enterprise and what they must deliver.
• Loose – let the people get on with it. Don’t interfere with what they are doing or insist on doing it “your way”. (He made the point that this requires quite a bit of bravery and trust on the part of the project manager)
• Tight – once everyone has done their bit, get the team together and make sure that everything has been done and have got where want to be.

I quite like these ideas, I think they are probably enshrined in a management textbook somewhere, but I don’t know much about management, I just try and get things done and make everyone happy.