The last month I’ve been reading two books: an excellent (Origin of Wealth), and a flawed one. I’m going to write some notes on the latter: The Future of Management by Gary Hamel.

Hamel attempts to turn management on its head and following Gibson’s advice that “the future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed”, he looks for signs of the future in innovative companies.

The major problem with the book is that it’s written like a journalist article one might see in Business Week and not like a well-researched book. Like a review in Amazon mentioned this book is a mix of Drucker (good) and Tom Peters (bad!). It presents the cases of companies like Whole Foods, Google, W.L. Gore as well as the terrific work of Ricardo Semler at Semco. Although, these case studies are interesting, the problem is that they are presented as just-so stories without analysis.

After presenting the cases, Hamel attempts to answer the 6 challenges of management:

1. Democracy of Ideas – modeled after the Web and Wikis
2. Amplifying Human Imagination – give your employees the right data and tools
3. Dynamically Reallocating Resources – decentralize R&D
4. Aggregating Collective Wisdom – create a prediction market (and use the brilliant  askmarkets for the job!)
5. Minimizing the Drag of Old Mental Models – adopt OSS organizational models
6. Giving Everyone the Chance to Opt In – Google’s 20% rule, Linden Labs task list

Often the real problem for an established company is not a dearth of ideas, but management processes and practices that favor “more of the same” over “new and different” (p.216):

An intriguing article by John Kay about the credit crisis and the amount of control that the “big heads” actually had: none! In any crisis or success (e.g. Seven Habbits of Highly Effective People) we tend to attribute causality to the people at the top because it is easier that way:

Our desire to see history through the lives of great men blinds us to the real complexity of politics, business and finance, and leads us to find intentionality and design where there are only chance and improvisation. The philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre, put it acerbically: “When imputed organisational skill and power are deployed and the desired effect follows, all that we have witnessed is the same kind of sequence as that to be observed when a clergyman is fortunate enough to pray for rain just before the unpredicted end of a drought!” He also said: “One key reason why the presidents of large corporations do not, as some radical critics believe, control the US is that they do not even succeed controlling their own corporations.” That was the experience of Chuck Prince, former Citigroup chief, and Stan O’Neal, former head of Merrill Lynch.

Reality is too complex for simple causal links…

Good times are over and drastic measures are needed VC uberlords Sequoia Capital (via Techcrunch). Trimming the fat off the corporation is a necessity, but what about growth? Where will it come from? Unless the product/service is something really revolutionary (no Jaiku-style crap), you are in for some tough competition.

Sequoia Venture Capital Warning to CEOs – Get more Business Plans

In between work and ALBA lectures, here’s a funny primer on the subprime mess with no comments  Subprime Primer!

Airline food – that perennial comedy club staple is in danger as troubled, full service airlines consider dropping it. Predictably, there was an outcry by regular passengers, but why? Is in-flight food any good? The answer is no, but it’s a way to pass and (suprisingly) track time. One interesting fact is the complications arising from the high attitude environment:

 â€œIt’s just as well that in-flight food isn’t about gustatory greatness, because meal service isn’t easy when you’re five miles high. Even coffee is problematic because it’s harder to bring water to proper temperature at 40,000 feet. When McDonald’s did a Happy Meals promotion with a major carrier in the 1990s, the burger giant had to reformulate the cheese so it would melt rather than liquefy in flight. And forget about gourmet dining. How do you create a four-star meal when open flames are verboten, prep space is nonexistent, knives have rounded edges, and flight attendants must serve dozens of passengers at once using a convection oven?

In FT, Pankaj Ghemawat argues that the world isn’t flat. Semi-globalization means that local companies can still successfully compete with global behemoths: as an example he mentions Goody’s vs McDonals in Greece! Although we tend to think that the internet has led to global hyperconnection (as people in the Victorian age thought of the telegraph), there are still cultural and economic barriers that still leave good niches to flexible players.

Το ηλεκτρονικό περιοδικό Edge.org δημοσίευσε την ερώτηση του για το 2008 την οποία απαντούν μερικοί από τους πιο σημαντικούς “ανθρώποι του πνεύματος”. Highlights: η κατάρρηψη του Piaget από τον Howard Gardner, ο προβληματισμός της Irene Pepperberg για την επιστημονική προσέγγιση και τα πειράματα:

Third, I’ve learned that the scientific community’s emphasis on hypothesis-based research leads too many scientists to devise experiments to prove, rather than test, their hypotheses. Many journal submissions lack any discussion of alternative competing hypotheses: Researchers don’t seem to realize that collecting data that are consistent with their original hypothesis doesn’t mean that it is unconditionally true. Alternatively, they buy into the fallacy that absence of evidence for something is always evidence of its absence.

I’m all for rigor in scientific research — but let’s emphasize the gathering of knowledge rather than the proving of a point.

Συνεχίζοντας την αναζήτηση δεικτών, έπεσα πάνω στο πολύ ενδιαφέροντα ιστότοπο της Juice Analytics (ο οποίος μεταξύ των άλλων έχει και κάποιες πολύ καλές συμβουλές για το σχεδιασμό charts σε Excel). Εκεί υπάρχει το εξής διάγραμμα για την εύρεση του τέλειου δείκτη απόδοσης:

Συνεχίζοντας από το προηγούμενο post, αυτό που θα προσθέσω είναι το πόσο σημαντικό είναι αυτό που στο διάγραμμα εμφανίζεται ως “Κοινή Ερμηνεία”: το να είναι ο δείκτης απόδοσης κατανοητός με τον ίδιο τρόπο από όλη τα μέλη του συστήματος εργασίας.

Στο OpenCoffee.gr, ο Θέμης Παπαδημόπουλος αναφέρεται στην Οικονομική Έκθεση του ΟΑΣΑ σύμφωνα με την οποία είμαστε πρώτοι στην Εργασιακή Σταθερότητα (ή τελευταίοι στην Ευελιξία).

Πέρα από κάποια θεμελιώδη ερωτήματα για το πως βγαίνει το νούμερο (το αν περιλαμβάνει ή όχι τους πάνω από 1.000.000 δημόσιους υπαλλήλους λ.χ. είναι κομβικό σημείο), δείχνει κάποια πράγματα τόσο για τη δυναμική της Ελληνικής οικονομίας (όπως πολύ σωστά τονίζει και ο Θέμης), αλλά λέει και κάποια πράγματα για την Ελληνική κουλτούρα. Υπάρχει πρώτα από όλα πολύ μικρότερο ποσοστό απολύσεων από ότι σε ΗΠΑ/Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο, ενώ ημεγαλύτερη σταθερότητα μπορεί να οδηγεί σε μεγαλύτερη συμπόρευση στόχων εργαζομένου και επιχείρησης.

Έχει τύχει και τον τελευταίο καιρό να ψάχνουν πολλοί φίλοι για δουλειά. Καθώς τα ‘χω και γω φρέσκα από την περιπέτεια του jobhunting, αποφάσισα να ξανακοιτάξω το αρχείο που χα μαζέψει και να διαλέξω τους δύο καλύτερους οδηγούς. Τον πρώτο το συνάντησα πρόσφατα, το δεύτερο τον έχω ακολουθήσει κι εγώ!

Αμερικάνικη Εκδοχή The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning

When picking an industry to enter, my favorite rule of thumb is this: Pick an industry where the founders of the industry — the founders of the important companies in the industry — are still alive and actively involved.

Ελληνική Εκδοχή “Που πας ρε Καραμήτρο” (George Anagnostopoulos)

Ο δικός μου τρόπος λοιπόν έχει ως εξής: Πρέπει πάντα να θυμάσαι ένα και μοναδικό πράγμα. Μια μικρή φρασούλα. Τρεις λεξούλες. Μπορείς να τις θυμάσαι; Θα στις πω όσο πιο διακριτικά μπορώ   «Είσαι ένα προϊόν.»

Tags: job, career, work