Examining my dictionary What is a manager? My dictionary states that a manager is: "a person responsible for controlling or administering an organization or group of staff" But there is an implicit assumption here, which is the following: that an organization or a group of staff need managing. And that's what it used to be. … Continue reading Death of The Manager
Tag: management
Cargo Cult management
A famous Feynman story I first encountered the term "cargo cult" in the late 1980's when reading one of Richard Feynman's books, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" on his quite interesting life. He actually used it in a commencement address at CalTech in 1974. In short, he refers to a practice of dogmatically executing a … Continue reading Cargo Cult management
How Valve gets the new economy: treat your employees as the adults they can be
In a blog post about how Valve operations are significantly different from other environments he had worked for, Michael Abrash made some very astute observations about how our current creative economy is significantly different from anything that went before. He states: "almost all the value was in performing a valuable creative act for the first … Continue reading How Valve gets the new economy: treat your employees as the adults they can be