Companies That Cannot be Fixed
I am now reading The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management, by Stephen Denning. This is another book on business management: it joints a crowded bookshelf – where all the books assume that anything can be fixed. In fact, this attitude only proves that the people are determined to be optimistic. In reality, there are situations that cannot be fixed – and they are fairly common. We need to recognize these, and not waste our time trying to fix them.
I had great hopes for this book when I bought it, because it builds on the latest software development techniques – which use people’s natural ability to cooperate, instead of ruthless competition. On the face of it, there is no reason this should not work – and work well.
BUT, people have forgotten how to cooperate constructively - and don’t want to relearn. They like the present mess just fine.
I browsed the links I had saved under software and found this goody: Worldwide cost of IT failure: $6.2 trillion. Now that’s a sizable sum! Here is another one Study: 68 percent of IT projects fail. Or try this one: How to Fix Capitalism: A Bandage on a Cancer.
All of these analyses, in my humble opinion, overlook the fundamental situation, which no one wants to see: people have been eliminated from the equation. And without them, we are not going anywhere.
I have not wanted to see this myself. Yesterday, I had a serious mental and physical collapse while eating in a restaurant. I had been reading Karl Jasper’s Mundane Existence and Existenz when I started to sweating profusely, and sat there only semi-conscious with the snot drooling out of my nose. Fortunately, no one panicked – and about 30 minutes later I was able to stagger home and put myself to bed.
Note also two things: I can say these things because I will never be employed again. Being unemployable, when you still need that bread, is a fate worse than death – everyone knows this and behaves accordingly. Secondly, even if I say this, nobody reads it.
I have not seen scenarios where a solution was not evident, but I have seen scenarios where the decision maker could or would not decide a course of action.