In the last post on implementation, APFG commented that the middle layer in the company is where you have most of the problems. Since almost everyone says this, let’s take a look at why.
For starters, let’s admit that it is not always true. There are often people at the top who are resistant to [...]

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Individuals seem to grok the Real Boss concept fairly easily. I’ve only met a couple of folks who totally refused it at first, and both of them were managing above their levels of competence. Most people get this concept.

And then the problems start.

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I’ve avoided talking about implementation for awhile. So let’s get into it!
I’ve got some questions and thoughts that I’ll be posting over the next few days about the general problems associated with “implementing RO”. Although I think that the whole idea is kind of whacked. It sounds a bit like “how do we get these [...]

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Top Consultant, a UK-based operation dealing with consultancies, has an interesting article describing a recent study by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Celerant Consulting, an affiliate of Novell. Top-Consultant reports that
More than 4 in 10 senior executives surveyed in a major new cross-industry study said that performance improvement initiatives undertaken at their companies [...]

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From Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier & President, in regards to Grant’s problems with bosses early in the war, when he was in the Western Department under Halleck. Halleck
Halleck piled on the humiliation with a follow-up telegram: “Your neglect of repeated orders to report the strength of your command has created great dissatisfaction and [...]

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From Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier & President, an interestingly balanced if slightly dull biography of the General who became President of the American States.
The unthinkable had become thinkable. The South, unable to manage either transition to a postslavery economy or irrevocable economic decline, was now talking only to itself as it sought to defend the [...]

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I’ve been reading Thomas Fleming’s extended essay on the requirements of morality and why provincialism should trump any call to universalism (”Save my family” trumps “Save the world”), The Morality of Everyday Life: Rediscovering an Ancient Alternative to the Liberal Tradition. It’s an interesting read. I’ll review it when I’m done.
He quotes Gabriel Marcel, [...]

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I’ve been reading KM articles and discussions lately. Again. I wonder if anyone has ever thought of the problem of different levels of abstraction.
Just because I’m in Software Development doesn’t mean that I want the same level of detail as the guy down the hall. I tend towards big picture thinking, wanting to see the [...]

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I am simply trying to get this down.
Communities of practice, left unmolested in a small organization, formalized and evolved (i.e., changed into the new form of) the functional silo. That’s why getting rid of the functional silo is so difficult: they keep on coming back. Walk with me on this one.
When a company [...]

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