Comment by hansmayer
2 days ago
No, please. Eisenhower Matrix, Scrum, Extreme Ownership and the like - all from the minds of military types, whose supposed valuable lessons from a completely different area of human activity (wars and the like) are supposed to be something we should admire and apply in the workplace, under the joint tagline of "Leadership". In fact, I´d argue that precisely the application of those principles in the last 20 years have contributed to worsening and making the today´s office work environment unnecessarily intense. Everyone has "leadership qualities" these days and is trying to exert "influence" - instead of actually doing some real work.
“ instead of actually doing some real work.”
Doing real work is for suckers. Talking about it is where the real money is.
Sadly, you are absolutely spot on.
Or it may be the application of principles that are described or marketed as being these old principles, but are often just junk with a fake veneer.
These giant systems really are fascinating, although I'm glad I don't work in them. And I believe they were massively advanced during World War II. Because besides the obvious task of fighting a war, a lot of military work is logistics. No large scale operation can be accomplished without putting a lot of thought and work into it. A lot of what is required is sophisticated supply chain.
You will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics. General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics. Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps)
You're right about everything, including the note on logistics. But workplaces should not be modelled after battlefields, that's my point.
The original implementation is different from what it's turned into. There was a heavy emphasis on listening to workers and understanding why each step of a process was important (or not) and making appropriate improvements. The top-down one-size-fits-all manager hellscape framework approach (scrum etc) is more a product of the Clinton era.
Well, scrum was invented by a Vietnam-war combat pilot (what the hell did he know about producing value as opposed to wasting value, for example by dropping ordinances).