Philosophical musings
So Jim from
Smoke On The Water and I were kicking around some random philosphy, and we got to talking about how a man should manage a staff, live his life, fight a man, fight a war...
Basically we were getting all Heinleiny, and Jim says "Hey that'd make a good management seminar"
Anyway, what we came up with was this
First, the classic code of chivalry:
To fear God and maintain His Church
To serve the liege lord* in valour and faith
To protect the weak and defenceless
To give succour to widows and orphans
To refrain from the wanton giving of offence
To live by honour and for glory
To despise pecuniary reward
To fight for the welfare of all
To obey those placed in authority
To guard the honour of fellow knights
To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit
To keep faith
At all times to speak the truth
To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun
To respect the honour of women
Never to refuse a challenge from an equal
Never to turn the back upon a foe.
Now you need to throw in my personal management philosophy.
My management philosophy has a few very basic, but very important tenets:
- Trust
- Respect
- Professionalism
- Communication
- Honor
- Loyalty
To this end, I have some rules to live by. The rules are simple, but they are critical:
- You are adults, I will treat you as such
- You are professionals, I will treat you as such
- I am your advocate; I do my best for you
- In return, you do your best for me
- I trust you completely – ONCE
- Trust your team completely – with all others; trust, but verify
- Life Comes First
- K.I.S.S.
- The “P”s
- Planning (SMESCS)
- Mission focus
- Be prepared
- Be creative
- No idea is a bad idea (but it may not be the RIGHT idea)
- Never say "That's impossible" to the guy who's actually doing it
- Take risks – but understand and MANAGE them
- Good is Enough; Good Enough Isn’t
- Unintended consequences
- Good intentions matter, but good results matter more
- Sometimes you have to make the “least bad” decision
- The Perfect is the enemy of the good
Now some of these rules may require more explanation:
K.I.S.S
- Keep
- It
- Simple
- Somethingorother (depending on how rude you want to be)
The "P"s
- Prior
- Preparation
- Prevents
- Poor
- Performance
SMESCS
- S ituation
- M ission (or objective)
- E xecution
- S ervice and Support
- C ommand Control Communications
- S upply and Logistics
MISSION
- What is a MISSION?
- What’s the difference between a mission, and an objective? (two answers)
- What is OUR mission??????
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
ALWAYS REMEMBER THIS:
No matter what you do, what you know, or what your intentions are; every word you say, every thing you do, will have consequences you did not intend, forsee, or understand.
Oh and there's an important maxim to live by:
Expect and require excellence, and you will often recieve it.
Expect and reqire no more than mediocrity, and you always will recieve it.
Now we're off to a good start, but we need to leaven it with some classics.
Lets add in Von Clausewitz, Heinlein, Sun-Tzu, Von Mises, Robert E. Lee, and Adam Smith...
To my mind, you can't do any better than that
Posted by cbyrne at September 16, 2005 07:55 PM
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