I, like many fine people, grew up in Chicago. And as my family is tired of hearing, I love their grid street pattern. Most of the streets are at a right angle with a rational number or naming scheme and traffic systems in place to make an easy transition from small to medium to big streets.
The system works well, and I can attest that it’s great for a new driver. In the neighborhoods where I learned the ropes, I quickly noticed that Chicago had stop signs on slow street intersections to control the flow of traffic.
For me, that was a no-go. I preferred using the through streets and keep things moving. My sister, on the other hand, preferred the slower, more controlled streets because they were safer.
Going on the faster streets, I quickly learned that accidents were more common there because people weren’t observing the rules or following speed limits. What I learned was there there are paths you can navigate that have friction, or controls, where you stop and wait for input, versus pathways that let you move through a system without those controls, or at least with fewer.
One approach offers speed, the other safety. And a lot of organizations take one of these two paths. People move quickly with a drive to get things done now, which can be highly efficient or reckless, depending on your perspective.
And others prefer to sit and wait at the intersection until the crossing guard gives them the go ahead. That could mean waiting a long time, but things are safe and comfortable, and those aren’t nothing.
For a lot of organizations, management and senior leadership become the crossing guards. You are the intersection controls that determines the speed of “traffic” in your organization. And just about any organization can benefit from a Chicago-style grid system.
Some areas need a checkpoint, because sometimes the best solution is to slow down and think for a moment. On other streets, you need free-flowing traffic where people can complete essential tasks and just keep going.
For years, my advice to younger managers has been not to be a stoplight. Don’t build your system in such a way that you have to control all of the traffic and everything requires your permission to move through the intersection.
If you do take that approach, you turn from a leader into an intersection apparatus for approving movement. Organizations don’t function well that way, and I’d bet that there are a lot of things going on every day that don’t require your direct involvement or oversight.
In my experience, insecurity is the number one reason that people put themselves in these positions. If that sounds like you, I’d encourage you to seriously consider the reason that you want to personally approve anything. Are you pursuing a sense of importance or trying to keep busy? If so, it’s time to make a change in how you manage.
The opposite can also be true, however, and organizations suffer when there is no traffic guard in place. The faster streets let too many things get started without check-ins to ensure they’re finished, and the open path quickly fills up with collisions until nobody is getting anywhere.
If you’re using a system without any controls in place, you’ll get as little done as the organization that’s eternally waiting for the light to turn green.
You want an efficient system that gets traffic moving at a good pace, maybe a bit faster than the speed limit, if your tastes are like mine. Too little friction and things go off the rails, but if management functions solely as a traffic guard, you’re not adding value or safety. You’re only adding control.