One of the great things about the internet is how you start looking at one topic and end up looking at something else that’s equally, if not more, interesting.
I found this essay by William Deresiewicz on Solitude and Leadership whilst following a thread on the Mini Microsoft blog about the demise of the KIN and how the Danger team seem to have been actively demotivated by incompetent management and marketing wonks at Microsoft in the time immediately after the buyout.
In particular, this caught my eye :-
Excellence isn’t usually what gets you up the greasy pole. What gets you up is a talent for maneuvering. Kissing up to the people above you, kicking down to the people below you. Pleasing your teachers, pleasing your superiors, picking a powerful mentor and riding his coattails until it’s time to stab him in the back. Jumping through hoops. Getting along by going along. Being whatever other people want you to be, so that it finally comes to seem that, like the manager of the Central Station, you have nothing inside you at all. Not taking stupid risks like trying to change how things are done or question why they’re done. Just keeping the routine going.
Finally, maybe, we’re starting to wake up to what is fundamentally wrong with Western business ethos.
Incidentally, if you read the Mini Microsoft blog and wonder if it’s just a bunch of whiny techies … no, I think not. My recent experience in this business area suggests that this sort of thing is all too common. Most of the people doing the actual work know what customers want – after all, a lot of them are customers themselves. Those calling the shots, on the other hand, give the impression that they’ve never even seen the internet, let alone a smartphone.
I fear this is all too common across all aspects of our business lives.