Software development groups almost always form a shadow hierarchy or pecking order of merit. Elliott Jaques’s theory of Requisite Organization explains why.
Performance Reviews and Pay
Let me come clean: I have never had a good experience in any formal performance review. I tend towards the “tell me what you want me to do and let me do it” mindset. Whenever I have managed employees, I have always believed that if you didn’t know how you were doing at least every week, I wasn’t doing my …
Strengthening Hierarchy from the Bottom Up
The challenge with hierarchy is balancing position power with inclusion. We’ve been on an “Engagement Journey” for quite a while, one that is aimed at imparting cultural change and resulting in a highly engaged workforce. We might even conclude that although imperfect, many of the right things are being done. Engagement is being built with managerial systems. There are no …
Thomas Friedman’s Flat World
There are two recent articles by Thomas Friedman, who did the recent PBS series on outsourcing to India. He’s also written a book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, which is due out soon. Friedman’s article in the New York Times Magazine (It’s a Flat World After All”) is interesting. The article has been archived …
Paul Graham on Startups
Paul Graham has written his thoughts on what it takes to startup a sustainable company. It’s worth reading, as is a good deal of his writings. Graham’s an interesting guy: trained as a painter in Italy with a PhD in CompSci from Harvard.
India and China in pact
J sent me this article on the improving relations between China and India. When I went to the colloquiom on leading multi-cultural change (new associate coming out of that; stay tuned for an announcement here), I heard an earful on this from the Indians present. India needs stable relations with China simply because of proximity. The fact that the United …
The mobile worker: Curse or blessing? (guest post)
The following article is reproduced with permission from Paul Tremlett, President of COREinternational and was published in the Canadian HR Reporter. Publish Date: February 28, 2005 You might not like career development costs for employees whose allegiance is fleeting — but that’s the labour market if you expect to attract top performers By Paul Tremlett and Ginty Burns There was …
Discrimination Deters the Realization of Current Potential Capability
Central to the objectives of stratified systems theory and requisite managerial practices is the notion that the organization will reach its full potential capability by facilitating the opportunities for the individuals employed by the organization in meeting their full potential. The objective of providing each individual the opportunity to realize his or her full potential capability is a remarkable and …
Building the Prosperity of the New Global Community via Work Organizations
It is imperative as the new millennium evolves that we understand why people work, what they set forth to derive from their work, how they behave as an expression of their level of satisfaction obtained at work, and the accountabilities of managerial (and parliamentarian) leadership, in creating conditions within the workplace that set forth to satisfy fundamental and evolving human …
Job Security or Job Satisfaction
Job Security or Job Satisfaction? Of course the objective is obtaining employment that provides both job security and job satisfaction, yet what is one to do when he or she is left weighing off one versus the other? The preference is this will be a conjunctive conversation and not a disjunctive one…the “and” versus “or” distinction! We wish to hear …