Laurent Courtines Free Online

Product manager for Oberon Media, Baseball Fan & Husband. A man with opinions on everything - but expertise in online products and online casual games.  
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June 5, 2010
 

A Peoples History Of Business

I am reading Howard Zinn's classic A People's History of the United
States for the first time and it has got me thinking.

At first the book actually annoyed me due to the heavy handed anti-capital lean but
I got over it as it is the point of the book. As the book moved into
more modern times (1890-1915) I felt myself shift more towards the
working man. More importantly the power of organization and the
bottom up approach of the great labor organizers. It really is a
about people giving of themselves for the greater good and an
illustrative example of disruption of the status quo by lynchpin
personalities.

All these items got me to thinking about the current work place and
how we can all learn from the story of the People's movements. The
themes that Zinn hits on are that change never just comes from
management enacting it. Change comes from ACTION and RADICALISM. From
standing up, making noise and saying ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! If you care
about your job, the work you are doing and the fact that you KNOW it's
going badly, you have to push, you have demand change.

What that might look like at work:
1. In a corporate all hands meeting stand up and tell the truth. What
is really happening at work.
"Hey CEO man, your one million dollar branding campaign is terrible
and a waste of money. Here is what you should do!"
2. Start your blog, twitter account and connect with other workers
and tell them about work.
"Just had another strategy meeting for 2010, by the way it's May"
3. Defy, resist, push and question everything.
Don't wait for approval when you know it's good idea. Resist doing on
high edicts when you know everything isn't one size fits all.
Question when some one who doesn't know your business tells you what
you need to do.

What do you think the resistance at work looks like?

Filed under  //   Productivity   disruption   howard zinn   lynchpin  

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April 10, 2010
 

Why big companies suck and how they can deal with it.

I work at a big honking company (or at least a company that used to be
big and acts like a big company) Things here are odd and we work in
silos.  I don't know what is going on at the company at a micro-level
For instance,  there is a Facebook fan page for every one of the 100
brands and I don't know who runs them.  There are people doing awesome
viral work,  but no one is sharing the knowledge and it just goes on
and on.
Every once in a while we get an email from the OFFICIAL marketing team
telling us - "we're making a concerted effort to have Facebook fan
pages" And I am thinking?  I've had a fan page since Facebook
introduced them?  Why don't you ask your employees what they are up to
- find out what successes and failures they've had.

This is why big companies suck - duplication of work,  lack of
institutional knowledge sharing and a sad amount of mandates for
things people are already doing.  All this is absurd and sad.  There
are great people here doing great work and think they are alone in
their great work.  We're all reading the same blogs, and trying the
same things but on our own.  Its as though all the advantage of having
all these employees is lost because we're pushed to work on our own
things.

How do we deal with it?  To me there are a few things -
1. Empower employees to share information.
Have all employees enter their social network information into the
Enterprise phone book.  I mean,  who really cares about phones anyway.
2. Call out those who are doing good work.
Instead of the silly marketing team mandates call out the people doing
good work already. There experts here and you insult them with new
mandates. Not only that you make it seem like you don't know what you
are doing.
3. Give us the keys to the car.
At big companies there is access to great tools or contacts that will
help all of us move forward. Instead of locking all this up for
special projects let folks know what is going on. We need information
and tools to make things happen. Give us the tools and we'll make it
happen.

What do you think? What else do you see at big companies that don't work?

Filed under  //   Change   Productivity   work  

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