Book Review: How people organise themselves
I read a wonderful german book called “Wie sich Menschen organisieren, wenn ihnen keiner sagt, was sie tun sollen” aka How people organise…
I read a wonderful german book called “Wie sich Menschen organisieren, wenn ihnen keiner sagt, was sie tun sollen” aka How people organise themselves, if no one tells them what they should do.
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> Und Arbeit ist nun mal Arbeit, wenn der Arbeitende für die Kunden, Mandanten, Patienten, Klienten, Leser echte Wertschöpfung erbringt. Sonst nenne ich es Beschäftigung.
aka: A job is a job, as long as the worker is doing things of value for customers, patients, clients, readers … otherwise it is just activity.
And that is very true if you think about it. What you do needs to create value.
The author goes on to talk about strategy and that things change. His example is Ali against Foreman, where Ali changed his strategy when he noticed that his existing one didn’t work against Foreman. The point is that if current things do not work, change them.
Remember this: Every employee is there for one thing: The problem of the customer must be solved. It cannot be ignored. Then, some other market participant will solve it.
He then goes deeper into Ocean’s Eleven, as an example, where there are different accomplices how no fixed jobs but roles they take from time to time. Done is what needs to be done and what needs to be done is defined by the problem that needs to be solved.
The only problem I have with that is the long term view.
If you push that further, schools, businesses and the like are really an aggregation of jobs with a distinct set of expectations that are totally independent of the people that fill them. That is very very dangerous and especially with people that can choose where they work, it might not be the right setting.
It is hard to translate from germany, but the german word Amt, which is maybe translated as “office” or a job of authority, actually comes from the celtic ambactos … the whorish, the servent, … somebody that does something that he is told.
And that is where the problem comes in. If you have offices, if you have jobs of authority, people will want to keep that authority and hence the production manager will not allow anyone else to have the best ideas for production problems and the marketing manager not for marketing. This is simply because they are attached to the office and not to solving the customer problem. Everyone wants to keep the peace. I still think you need some kind of focus for people but maybe that needs to be on the task.
We have that at Giant Swarm in that we have Special Interest Groups around topics that take the focus away from the person but at the same time allows a person to be in the lead in that group, at least temporarily. And you always have to remember that we have people inside the company that other people look up to but simply because they know they have knowledge in the field, that they are good in the field. Not because they hold an office.
The author continues going down the path that you need to not have individual appraisals when team performance is important. This is nothing new, but it is always forgotten.
Something that corporates to do not understand: Overregulation leads to a situation where criminal acts take over. Sounds harsh but if you have a rule and people have to break the rule to do their job, they will, and you will love them for it and that it totally stupid. Throw out rules as often and as fast as you can.
Instead of rules you need principles that mean something, that exclude something. We are honest to each other … is not a principles. It needs to be clearer. Real principles exclude something that would be ok. We will not work with people that are not honest, even if it would be good for the company in a monetary way…. that would be a principle.
And these principles need to allow you to increase your level of preparation because in a complex world, often things happen that you could not plan for so you need to be prepared. You need to be fit for different realities. That is what is important for the future, not planning. Of course you can plan for the known part of the future, but for the unknown you need to prepare and yes that takes time and effort but it is not more than planning, and especially a lot more worthwhile than useless planning because of an unknown future.
Very good book.