Saturday, May 21, 2005

Youth And Responsibility

Its obvious to anyone who thinks about such things that the only hope for the future are the youth. The big picture aside, lets look at youth only in the context of the workplace. Its also painfully evident that no one trusts the young trainees just out of the trainee program.
We are of course polite. They dont have enough experience we say, we cant risk it - what if they screw up on production?. We(the experienced people, the guys who have seen it all) can't spend all our time reviewing what the trainees are delivering. In other words it is easy to find rational arguments which prevent us from delegating responsibility/tasks to the young 'uns.
The plain truth is that we don't trust them. Or we trust that they will screw up.
Which is a sorry state of affairs.
I need to break out of this mental block . And I think I'm still someone who trusts the younger people around him a lot more than others.
But it has to improve

Sunday, May 01, 2005

The Anarchist Management Model

One of the things that keeps occupying my thoughts these days is how much that we learn from life can be applied to our work.
One of the major problems in work can be summarised as Management. Most non managers would not hesitate in calling Management evil , and only perhaps were we really feeling charitable would we call Management a necessary evil. But Managment persists as a practice , even worse you have younger generations(am i really this old?) growing up wanting to be managers. You have people joining the project stating that they want a management role.
As such I'm against all sorts of management in principle. I think this has to do with the fact that as a form of governance I prefer Anarchy. And currently Management is a pseudo democratic dictatorship. You dont really have a say on who is your manager (hence a sort of dictatorship) but perhaps results /feedback can get the manager removed.
Id like to see a project where people take responsibility for their actions. Divide the work amongst themselves based on their competencies. Set targets for themselves and meet them. Resolve their problems without needing outside intervention.
Could it Happen ?