[HN Gopher] Frances Hesselbein's leadership story (2022)
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       Frances Hesselbein's leadership story (2022)
        
       Author : skadamat
       Score  : 110 points
       Date   : 2024-06-01 15:14 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (davidepstein.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (davidepstein.substack.com)
        
       | chrisjj wrote:
       | > her "circular management," where staff members are like beads
       | on concentric circles
       | 
       | To avoid going hierarchically "up" to the CEO, I guess :)
        
       | 1oooqooq wrote:
       | beautiful eulogy
       | 
       | anyone can find the recruitment posters they talk about? i
       | couldn't.
        
       | mikehollinger wrote:
       | The Peter Drucker compliment is pretty amazing.
       | 
       | As an aside for anyone who's technical and wants to understand
       | how most corporations work, read "Effective Executive." It's from
       | the 60's but is still very relevant.
       | 
       | It (more or less) is "how to be a knowledge worker."
        
         | spit2wind wrote:
         | I second this. If Peopleware or The Mythical Man Month are for
         | managers, The Effective Executive is for individual
         | contributors.
        
         | mjklin wrote:
         | Alongside this I would recommend "The Art of Being an
         | Executive" by Louis Lundborg, written by an actual CEO
        
         | scrubs wrote:
         | Definitely that book. Can recommend.
         | 
         | Re knowledge worker and its challenges: a HBR article had a
         | nice comic succinctly describing part of the challenge.
         | 
         | Imagine the boss walking down the hall with offices w/half
         | glass doors both sides so you can see in.
         | 
         | In one office Bob is hard at it on the phone. In another office
         | Carl is lost in thought looking at reports. In a third office
         | chuck has got his feet up on the desk thinking.
         | 
         | The caption (of the boss' thoughts) read: I wonder what they're
         | doing?
         | 
         | This contrasts with manufacturing. The brake guy is on the
         | brake line doing brake stuff. Period.
         | 
         | Maybe bob, Carl, Chuck are doing the boss' ask, maybe not.
         | Maybe they're trying to get it right inspite of the boss or
         | not.
         | 
         | Going back to drucker's book he makes a strong point. He says
         | it used to be to make money you come up with a product (oil,
         | milk, wd40, dish soap, tin foil) and put you the smart people
         | on design and manufacturing management. The rest are merely
         | warm hands. Here's there is a concentration of talent in one
         | place.
         | 
         | Not so in knowledge work. To get anything done you need teams
         | to work cross functionally to combine spealists. It's a
         | different ballgame.
         | 
         | Apple for example has good cross functional management lining
         | up apps + hw + os + manufacturing supply chain. A apple guy
         | interviewed by Charlie rose said that's apple's real secret
         | sauce. Yes, industrial design form is sweet, but that's not the
         | secret sauce, in fact.
        
       | OldGuyInTheClub wrote:
       | I think this is the first management/leadership post on here that
       | I enjoyed reading. I've watched conventional industry/MBA-style
       | techniques being forced onto the arts community (for example)
       | with bad results. It does seem like different cultures could use
       | different leadership approaches.
       | 
       | Of course, finding actual leaders is damned hard.
        
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       (page generated 2024-06-01 23:00 UTC)