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Line of sight: A buzzword defined

Scott Cameron, senior vice president at R3 Government Solutions, advised an audience at FOSE to create "lines of sight" in organizations so that all employees understand how their work contributes to the organization's mission.

To illustrate the point, he told a story about President John F. Kennedy visiting a NASA facility after the race to reach the moon had begun.  Encountering a janitor, Kennedy asked what his job was.

"I'm here to put a man on the moon," the janitor said.

"Now that's a line of sight," Cameron said. "He's there to put a man on the moon, not to sweep the floor."

It's an old story, one that's been incorporated into business speeches time and again to illustrate principles of self-worth and inspired employees. It may be apocryphal. But it is a good one.

Posted on Apr 04, 2012 at 11:12 AM


Reader Comments

Sun, Apr 8, 2012

Sadly, a common problem in fed service,and computers have only made it worse. In the old days, when the inch-think 'reading file' of pink tissue copies made its way around, I could see the river of data flowing by, and reach in and examine whatever looked important. Learned more from that than I did from mangers and coworkers. Now that everything is electronic, I have trouble learning what the folks in the next cube pod over are doing, much less maintaining situational awareness of what the whole command is doing. People Don't Like To Share. (Or being charitable, they simply don't have the time.)

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