Trust People
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Todd Payne (1/6/2011)
To continue with the army analogy, The problem I see most often is that the soilders are forced to obey commands that no longer defeat the enemy, and the officers place the blame on the soilders . Those soilders can't be asked to follow orders without a say in what the tactics should be. I think the heirarchy can lead to a eletist attitude at the top, and we fail to see the wisdom of those who have recent battle experiance.
I think the army analogy shows how the big issue with this kind of thing is that there is no such thing as a single right answer. For a large army you need to have processes and follow the chain of command, since there's simply no way the people at the bottom can know everything that is happening everywhere else. They don't know what impact doing something differently might have on other people.
On the other hand, if you look at the British SAS (generally considered the worlds best special forces people), they operate completely differently, with the guys at the bottom given a lot more scope to decide how they operate and what they do, since the traditional army approach wouldn't work for the kind of operations they do. Eg, the officers may tell them WHAT needs to be done, but it's the guys at the bottom who decide HOW it will be done.
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LutzM (1/6/2011)
Being European, too, I have to disagree. Even the top player cannot decide to be a goalkeeper on one day and a striker on another day just because he's considered being the "single top talent". He still has his position in the team (maybe he's good at two or three positions), but it's still due to the coach to put him into the position where he can best support the team. But history has shown that even in European soccer you'll find a cowboy here and there. I don't know of anyone being successful over a long period though. Soccer still is a team sport. 😉 And even a soccer team needs a coach to guide them.
Wasn't part of the blame for England's poor performance at the last world cup ascribed to the lack of team play? Lots of individuals who in their own right are very good players (and often being the "single top talent" in their home clubs), but a complete lack of them working as a team.
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jay holovacs (1/6/2011)
Americans (the culture I am most familiar with) seems to have a dangerous fascination with the hero who breaks the rules-- the A team, the renegade cop or sheriff who cleans up the city. And it makes a good movie.In the real world, however, more often than not, the renegade creates problems. He may be working from limited understanding of the big picture, or he may let his judgement and biases supplant the protections of our legal system, in the end, he may take down the bad guy, or the wrong guy, or simply create distrust for the whole operation of law.
The point is not to be totally compliant... if the system is wrong challenge the system.. make noise, a lot of noise if ncessary. But as a football team needs to know where each player is going to be on a specific play (and a great player violating the play book does not help), an organization needs to know where everyone is, even if the overall plan is sub optimal.
On the other hand, there is too much of a good thing. American leaders, both business and government, are going overboard on shoehorning everyone into the same mold. This causes people to break the rules. The recent tragedy in Arizona is proof of this. A mentally unstable person shot and killed a bunch of people (usually this occurs because they felt they had no choice, however wrong that is), and other people became the "unlawful hero" by breaking the rules (let the cops deal with it) by tacking and sitting on the perp until the "real guys in control" were able to take over.
Sometimes breaking the rules is bad, shooting in this case was so extremely bad an entire nation is up in arms about it. Sometimes breaking the rules is good, the hero who steps up to protect others. The fact is that we have to be careful to set appropriate rules if we want them followed. When they are not appropriate, people will break them. "Knowing where everyone is" can be just as bad as it can be good. It all depends on how far you go in setting the rules.
Dave
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gserdijn (1/7/2011)
djackson 22568 (1/6/2011)
Joe Johnson-482549 (1/6/2011)
200 years to be a force to be reckoned with? That just doesn't seem that impressive.What's really impressive is that in 5 years (from Pearl Harbor), the US military went from being somewhere around 15th in the world to the primary military power. Talk about process improvement. Wow!
Too bad we've lost that initiative.
We haven't lost the initiative, ultra-left wing idiots are trying to end our strength on the misguided notion that all other countries are trustworthy because they oppose the US.
1. Compared to the Dutch political spectrum those ultra-left wings are considered right-wing conservatives.
2. The story of Hugo Kornelis triggered something in my memory: a Procrustean bed. It was used to make long people shorter and short people longer.
3. If this weren't a site about SQL Server I'd ask to elaborate on 'oppose the US'. :ermm:
In the US, the current "conservative" political groups are farther left than the "liberal" groups of the 1940's and 1950's.
Oppose - that is a reference to our political leaders that make it a game to criticize the US to other countries, and the more the other country hates (opposes) us, the more the leader(s) criticize.
We have some very good people in government in the US, on both sides, but the bad people on both sides seem to have control most of the time.
Dave
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Todd Payne (1/6/2011)
On the other hand, if you look at the British SAS (generally considered the worlds best special forces people),
Yeah, by the Brits! The Australians think theirs are, the Israeli's think theirs are, The US thinks theirs are...
BIG GRIN
Dave
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Keith Langmead (1/13/2011)
On the other hand, if you look at the British SAS (generally considered the worlds best special forces people)What about the Dutch 24th Wielrijdersbrigade? :w00t:
OK, some more coffee and I will be allright...
Dutch Anti-RBAR League -
djackson 22568 (1/13/2011)
Todd Payne (1/6/2011)
On the other hand, if you look at the British SAS (generally considered the worlds best special forces people),
Yeah, by the Brits! The Australians think theirs are, the Israeli's think theirs are, The US thinks theirs are...
BIG GRIN
I'm from the U.S... and I'm not so sure the Israelis are wrong. 😀
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I'm from the U.S... and I'm not so sure the Israelis are wrong. 😀
Well,...after going through the holocaust do you really blame them? They have vowed to never let that happen EVER again....I'm surprised they have put up with as much crap from the Arab world that they have.....:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
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I wholeheartedly agree.
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Many companies today try to implement standards, and strong management of their staffs, but they don't achieve greatness. Why not?
Acheiving greatness (or winning the war / competition / project) isn't all about having the right process and standards in place; it's also about choosing the right objectives and fighting the right battles. For example, even the largest and most professional military in the world will ultimatley fail, if their goal is revenge for some past grievance or an attempt at world domination. The Gauls caught the Romans off-guard, the Romans came back in force with a first class army 200 years later subjugating the entire region, but then 200 years after that the Roman Empire collapsed under it's own weight due to over-expansion. The Roman commanders knew how to dicipline and lead an army from a tactical perspective, but unfortunately for them the Roman Senate back home didn't know how to properly leverage and finance it from a strategic perspective.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
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Eric I read through your previous posts 4 years ago and thought them very valid.
In my opinion the only CEOs that are really good at defining Corporate and Operational Strategies tend to be the ones that set up the companies from the beginning. If you are lucky enough to work for a company like that then chances are corporate strategy and operations are aligned well. For everyone else the setting of technical procedures by non technical individuals I believe eventually leads to an introspective and fearful organisation.
Restricting individuals I believe reduces awareness of systems reduces visibility of mistakes which leads back to slow improvement and in the worst case constant repetition of mistakes. In my career I have found poor project management and negligence to be a far far greater threat to success than fraud.
Hire good individuals trust them to do their work and give them a bit of space.
Time and time again I see the new fast growing companies are run by young unrestricted individuals who are willing to experiment.
cloudydatablog.net
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It is a great read, and starts out by talking about the Gauls and their sacking of Rome in 4BC with a superior army.
The Gauls sacked Rome in 390 BC.
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Let the history books record that the United States Office of Personnel Management was sacked by Hackers in the summer of 2015.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
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Eric M Russell (7/13/2015)
Let the history books record that the United States Office of Personnel Management was sacked by Hackers in the summer of 2015.Yes, someone was caught butt-naked!
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"However by 200 years later, the Roman army was the strongest in the ancient world."
This is a western centric viewpoint. The eastern view point is that the persian army and the roman armies fought each other to a stand still and weakened each other so much that by the time of Mohammed there was no army left to nail him to the cross as was done with this Jesus dude. This led the islamic monster to grow wild until Chengiz khan razed it to the ground and stopped dead its evil spread.
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