The newsletter comes out today, and with client pressures, I feel the time crunch. But somehow I started to think about work, work levels, fit work, and my ancestors.

I advocate everyone having work that fits. I know that it is the best way to get the most out of someone, and that many of the problems that spiteful people believe are caused by personal failings are actually a result of being too big or small for the roles that society has foisted upon folks. So many of us don’t have work that fits, work that builds us up by fully using our gifts and capacities.

I also remember my grandfather.

When my grandfather died, he had read more and more widely than any other person I have met. Yet he never finished the ninth grade, being forced to go to work in the West Virginia coal mines when his father died in a cave-in. He worked the mines until his twenties, when he apprenticed as a butcher in the coal camp store through some stroke of luck. It was the Depression and butchers got to eat the meat scraps. He worked hard all his life at jobs to small for him, but he saw that his son got to college.
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Lots of you are Mode 6 or higher and getting frustrated in your efforts to provide the right résumé for executive positions.

“What is does an executive résumé look like?” people ask me. “Do you even know?”

Of course I do. And I will illustrate it with a story I saw on television several years ago.
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I sent out a short announcement to some of my Flemish colleagues about the audio of my conversation with the Belgian management guru, Luc Hoebeke. Vincent gave back a brief review:

A really high end conversation. Very intellectual guy: he looks to me like an economic/organisational philosopher, even a bit of an utopian/anarchist socialist (breaking the rules and the trust relation, the regulation is made for the non-workers, no strong leadership) but very goal oriented (efficiency, profitability, taking up responsibility, …) . Very interesting.

I’m pleased: I have been worried that the poor audio quality, what with the babbling brook, the bird, the neighbor’s lawn mower….

If you’ve missed it, Part One and Part Two are both now available, with Part Three scheduled for later this week.

For the past few weeks I’ve been telling you that I am developing a new program to help Hidden High Potentials discover who they are and find fulfilling work and lives. I’m proud to announce the first part of that program, The Secret Rules for Career Success. Because you are reading Requisite Writings right now, I want to give you the first opportunity to sign up when we finalize the dates — and give you a special thank-you discount!
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The New York Times reports Sunday that the US Army has created its own aerial surveillance unit because they weren’t able to get the service levels they wanted out of the unmanned Predator operations run by the US Air Force. It’s happening because the new unmanned systems have changed where the discretion for the reconn should lie.

From NYT:

In contrast to Predators, which are assigned by the top headquarters for missions all across Iraq, Task Force Odin is on call for commanders at the level of brigade and below, an effort by the Army to be responsive to the needs of smaller combat units in direct contact with adversaries — and a clear sign of rivaling concepts with the Air Force.

The article cites sources saying that Defense Secretary Gates wanted to make sure that both top-down and bottom-up (from the field) needs were being met.

The Air Force should probably be careful. An F-117A stealth fighter planes costs $42.6M [Fortune] and the B-2 Spirit stealth bombers run over $1B each [AerospaceWeb]. Predators are less than $4.5M per [BusinessWeek]. Which makes this about discretion.

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As I’m cleaning up stray references to Wilfred Brown in Wikipedia, I came upon an unsupported reference to his ownership of Eilean Rìgh, a smallish island off the coast of Argyll in western Scotland.

Nothing really to say here, just noting that it’s the only reference to this important figure.

Did you know that if you have more capacity to do work than the people you work with, they’ll oftentimes respond by addressing things to you even though you’re not the boss?

I’m busy putting the finishing touches on the launch of a new program Overachievers or Adult Underachievers, people who are not doing a role that is big enough for what they are bringing to the table, people that I call Hidden High Potentials. While you’re waiting for that big announcement (I know: long time coming!), here’s a great story from one of our readers that describes how a Hidden High Potentials create problems for themselves at work, simply by being good humans:
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The BBC have taken down the “Here Comes the Boss” series by Patrick Wright, mentioned by Ken Craddock in his excellent bibliography on Requisite Organization related writings. I’ve been trying to track down a copy for weeks now.

And then I remembered: the Internet Archive Wayback Machine!

They have collected the transcripts of the series. Not as good as having the complete series, but still good.

Wright “quotes” Haddy Rendal, an inspector at Glacier Metal Company, recored in 1951 during an earlier BBC show on the factory:

Ten or twelve years ago, this was a lousy firm to work for. In those days the foreman cracked the whip and if your face didn’t fit you’d had it. As time went on, things began to improve; foremen were chosen from the chaps on the floor and it made a big difference. Nowadays our relations with the managers are pretty good. It pays them to see that they are and it pays us too — we get more in wages and they get more in profit.

There are also lots of interesting points from people who worked with Brown. Great for those of us who are Wilfred Brown nuts.

Bill Morton, secretary of the Works Council for 26 years, said of Brown:

I say, he was a bloody con man…. I mean I dealt with him, I knew what a bastard he was.

Fun fact: Like our friend Al Gorman, Brown also stood for election to Parliament, although for a weird party (Common Wealth Party).

Transcript of Episode Two: Keep Talking

As some of you probably know, some of my partners have been washed out in Cedar Rapids and southern Indiana. Thus far we at The Manasclerk Company headquarters have been able to escape these 500-year rainfall events here in Indiana’s North End.

But I’ve still been very busy with a new program that I’m rolling out. Stay tuned.

I have decided to take the advice I gave Paul Holmström at Management Unplugged, I’m posting my answers to questions posed elsewhere. Recently, Jim Heskett of Harvard Business School asked “Why Don’t Managers Think Deeply?”
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