How To Keep A Job Today
Four Rules:
1. Encourage conformity
2. Don't take chances
3. Discourage innovation
4. Be satisfied with mediocrity
This is the way the USA seems to be going. What do you think?
1. Encourage conformity
2. Don't take chances
3. Discourage innovation
4. Be satisfied with mediocrity
This is the way the USA seems to be going. What do you think?
Contributing my two cents, I'm writing right now a book about how to manage systemically, and the conclusion is that innovation is the way forward. By the way, the first innovation is a cultural change from silo mentality to systems thinking. Sorry, the book is written in spanish. Maybe I can translate it sometime in the future.
No es tan difícil aprender a leer español. Yo mismo conozco sólo unas pocas palabras de español, pero tengo la pronunciación buena y tengo la habilidad tremenda para dar sentido a las traducciones computarizadas como Google Translate.
When I'm done with the book and ready to publish it in amazon (as I did with the other two) I will send an update here.
As an old friend told me, I'm old for deadlines, so I can promise that I will finish it, asap, but I don't know when.
The purpose of any company is to generate profit now and in the future.
The profit is produced as an emergent result of the interactions of the elements of the system. (The well know phrase of holism: the whole is more that the sum of the parts).
The prevailing belief in management today is that any idle resource is a waste. I say that this belief is anti-systemic and wrong. The proof is easy but long for this post. It is based on the interdependency and the fact that there is always statistical fluctuations.
These are the premises. The cause and effect reasoning is longer, but it leads to the conclusion that almost all the undesirable effects seen today (unemployment, bankruptcies, poor service, slow innovation rate, others) are due to this wrong belief. The only way out is to embrace systemic thinking (abandoning a lot of practices that stem from the old wrong belief) and to embark on the knowledge driven path on innovation.
By the way, innovation is possible for many companies today just understanding the implications of systemic thinking. For example, it is an innovation to offer ~100% reliability in delivery for most of make to order manufacturers. I've guided many companies through the years achieving this "miracle". After that knd of innovations, as knowledge is unlimited, not even the sky is the limit, right?
There is an odd book call The Goal that's a mixture of a book on business process management and a dramatic fiction story. It touches on your point in that the protagonist is struggling to reduce bottlenecks and the resulting idle resources. An expert consultant, a Mary Sue for the author, explains to him the goal of the business is to make money, not to maximize resource use efficiency.
Update: I just read your profile and see you're already a fan of The Goal. :)
(sorry for the typo and repost. Damn cellphones and thick fingers.)
Hobby Lobby allowed listeners everywhere to write in about their unusual hobbies so they could come on the radio and "lobby for their hobby." Many of the hobbies were actually people's professions like a female gorilla trainer, a scientist that makes robots, and a beekeeper (whose bees escaped during the show).
As a side note:
During WWII, the FBI recived word that Nazis were attempting infiltrate the show and use Hobby Lobby to covertly send messages to other Nazis over the radio. The agency sent Dave Elman a list of potential Nazis who might try to get on his show by pretending to have a hobby. Eventually threats were made on the lives of Elman and his family requiring 24 hour FBI protection.
The incredible economic engine that was Detroit.
During the fifties and sixties the auto industry probably many thought it would prosper indefinitely. Bit by bit union demands , regulations
skyrocketing healthcare cost( that continue
for us all today) unfair foreign trade ,not to mention aging factories careless quality control and managements arrogance.
Many lessons that have been lost on today's arrogant anti-upwardly mobile congress..
Edited to add, as this came to mind.
”Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
Maurice Strong,
Founder of the UN Environmental Program
”A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-Development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.”
Paul Ehrlich,
Professor of Population Studies,
Author: “Population Bomb”, “Ecoscience”
I have, in just my short (relatively speaking) lifetime seen the economics of this country of ours go through several revolutions with capitalism still hanging on by its fingernails. Vast changes of attitude or the next evolvements will lead us closer and closer to another Dark Ages, and it will not be a Mel Brooks style era.
They have been there and already doing that for a while now.
That is not to say that your outline might keep one employed and the status quo unchallenged.
We should let them gather all in one place and then turn on the lights, it would be a big mess but nothing a bulldozer couldn't handle.
Avoidance of risk by managers far overrides almost any conceivable benefit from new technology unless that technology is incremental (not disruptive) and owned by a large corporation with lots of lobbyists (pull.)
"What?"
"The other maintenance staff can't keep up with you and it is causing complaints from those on her side of the building because their rooms don't look as nice as yours!"
"What?" (Thinking to myself, don't you want me to teach her to be more efficient?)
"To stop the complaints I want you to do less so that the other staff member doesn't feel bad."
"What do you want me to do with my extra time?"
"Work slower, take it easy. I want you to do less!"
As a former employer I can cite many cases of exactly the opposite. The one I remember most vividly was a part-time Teen who was goofing off. I re-explained his duties to him and urged him to do better. His reply was classic: "Is this some sort of a test?"
2. Consult in a group and reach a consensus.
3. If one person's idea seems to be the solution to a problem, encourage him/her to develop it .
4. Consultation, co-operation and collaboration seem to be the trend in forward thinking companies. When someone presents an idea you don't agree with, remain silent until all ideas are out on the table. The right one usually pops up without being snarky and negative.
Yes, for some in some times and places, there have been paradigmatic moments. Hewlett Packard is an easy example. Or was. But they are not like that now.
You are closer to the truth when you identify "managers" of other people's assets as your culprits. However, the opposite would be failures of fiduciary responsibility as managers invest other people's resources in their own dreams and schemes. The solution of course is outside-the-box "management" i.e., entrepreneurship.
Corporations tried to sell "intrapreneuring" in the 1990s, but it did not work well. The failure was of the same nature as the inability of MBA programs to teach entrepreneurship. It must be learned, but it cannot be taught.
And, of course, "freezing progress in place" is a claim, as you say, but, as we know, it is impossible: if you are not moving forward, then you are sliding backward.
Yesterday, Google celebrated the discovery of the Antikythera device. Following Ayn Rand's essay "For the New Intellectual" many here claim to admire ancient Rome. They do not see it as a dark age compared to the Hellenistic era or the previous Classical era.
"We'd free the incarcerate race of man,
That such a doom endures,
Could you but creep into my mind,
Or I could enter yours."
Part of one of the few serious poems of Ogden Nash, called "Listen..."
As to understanding their psychology, if I were still active in the arena, it would be helpful, but it also would require a certain strength of intellect to keep it from making you feel unclean. I had to deal with my own crap enough without dealing with theirs.