Ben Horowitz was facing a particularly tricky management situation, where two excellent organizations within his company went to war with each other, when he happened to watch the most insightful management training film ever made:
The very next day I informed the head of Sales Engineering and the head of Customer Support that they would be switching jobs. I explained that, like Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris, they would keep their minds, but get new bodies.
However, after just one week walking in the other’s moccasins, both executives quickly diagnosed the core issues causing the conflict. They then swiftly acted to implement a simple set of processes that cleared up the combat and got the teams working harmoniously. From that day to the day we sold the company, the sales engineering and support organizations worked better together than any other major groups in the company.