RCRG
Syndicate
] "Perhaps I'm naive, but I've always believed that quality and care came from the heart, not from a manual. Quality is a culture, not a management technique. If one needs an instruction guide to tell one how to incorporate quality, provide service and value people, then perhaps that person should question their fitness to hold managerial responsibility in the first place. Management by manual is neither management nor delegation--it's abdication." (p. 178)
"'The last act of a dying organization is a thicker rule book.' The need for rules to control staff members marks a dramatic change in mutual respect, loyalty, and the esprit de corps that characterized earlier stages of organizational life." (p. 72)
"More victims of technological change: As the old rules have vanished so have the people who have been enforcing them. The middle managers, the guardians of corporate culture, who checked out your wing tips and made sure you were at your desk on time, aren't needed anymore. The rules they enforced don't contribute to the bottom line. And corporate cultures don't mean much in an environment where the employee or even the corporation itself may disappear tomorrow." (p. 295)
"Information technology operates through a series of displacements, from action to representation, from the politics of conflict to the invisible politics of forms and bureaucracy. Decades ago, Max Weber wrote of the iron cage of bureaucracy. Modern humans, he posited, are constrained at every juncture from true freedom of action by a set of rules of our own making. Some of these rules are formal, most are not. Information infrastructure adds another level of depth to the iron cage. In its layers, and in its complex interdependencies, it is a gossamer web with iron at its core." (p. 320)
"Workers whose work rules were not rigidly defined but were instead allowed to make their own decisions about the production process turned out to be both more productive and better satisfied with their jobs. Workers under these conditions showed considerable interest in helping one another and created their own system of leaders and mutual support if left to themselves." (p. 230)
"If I have one piece of advice to young people, it's to break rules. Let's first assume you are delivering way more than what is expected of you. You have to do much more than the expected to compete today, because there are plenty of people out there happy to do the minimum. If you are already overdelivering, and breaking a rule will help you deliver more, then go ahead. Ask yourself a question: Will breaking a rule really help everyone out, not just myself? Is the answer yes? Then go ahead and break the rule. I'm not talking about doing anything criminal or unethical. I mean not following some stupid policy or convention. You'll have more fun and everyone will learn more. Most of all, you'll deliver more." (p. 264)
"This codification, this rigor mortis that sets in around values and behaviors, is a problem unique to--and often devastating for--successful enterprises." (p, 185)
"There are no answers in the employee handbook.
The only solution is to change the game entirely." (p. 3)