Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
‘In point of fact,’ resumed Sir James, not choosing to dwell on ‘fits’, ‘Brooke doesn’t mean badly by his tenants or any one else, but he has got that way of paring and clipping at expenses.’
George Eliot • Middlemarch
Peter Drucker says one of the critical problems in the workplace today is that there is a lack of understanding between the employer and employee as to what the employee is to do.
John C. Maxwell • The Complete 101 Collection: What Every Leader Needs to Know
Which brings us to our main idea – how both the pyramid and its lifecycle are animated. The dynamics are governed by the Newton’s Law of organizations: The Gervais Principle. The Gervais Principle and Its Consequences The Gervais Principle is this: Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing Losers into middle-managem
... See moreVenkatesh Rao • The Gervais Principle: The Complete Series, with a Bonus Essay on Office Space (Ribbonfarm Roughs Book 2)
John Smith, U.S.A.” He went on to develop his view of himself in some detail: He is the man who doesn’t know much, nor thinks that he knows much. He starts out with certain ambitions but he gradually accumulates obligations as he goes along, and they continually increase. They begin with his inherited family, and grow with the family that results f
... See moreA. Scott Berg • Max Perkins: Editor of Genius
If he had to blame any one, it was necessary for him to move all the papers within his reach, or describe various diagrams with his stick, or make calculations with the odd money in his pocket, before he could begin; and he would rather do other men’s work than find fault with their doing. I fear he was a bad disciplinarian.
George Eliot • Middlemarch
“Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.”
John Willis • Deming's Journey to Profound Knowledge: How Deming Helped Win a War, Altered the Face of Industry, and Holds the Key to Our Future
But academics are also reluctant bureaucrats, in the sense that even when “admin,” as it’s called, ends up becoming most of what a professor actually does, it is always treated as something tacked on—not what they are really qualified for, certainly, and not the work that defines who they really are.
David Graeber • The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy
The IRS was one of the very first government agencies to learn that such qualities help insulate them against public protest and political opposition, and that abstruse dullness is actually a much more effective shield than is secrecy.
David Foster Wallace • The Pale King: An Unfinished Novel
Through some strange alchemy no one can quite explain, the number of salaried paper pushers ultimately seems to expand, and more and more employees find themselves—not unlike Soviet workers, actually—working forty- or even fifty-hour weeks on paper but effectively working fifteen hours just as Keynes predicted, since the rest of their time is spent
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