Sublime

NO OPERATING POLICY has contributed more to Hewlett-Packard’s success than the policy of “management by objective.” Although the term is relatively new to the lexicon of business, management by objective has been a fundamental part of HP’s operating philosophy since the very early days of the company. MBO, as it is frequently called, is the antithe

Management literature has long known the theorem of “the span of control,” which asserts that one man can manage only a few people if these people have to come together in their own work (that is, for instance, an accountant, a sales manager, and a manufacturing man, all three of whom have to work with each other to get any results).

And what The Technician who runs the company wants is not growth or change but exactly the opposite. He wants a place to go to work, free to do what he wants, when he wants, free from the constraints of work Unfortunately, what The Technician wants dooms his business before it even begins.

You don’t own a business—you own a job!

“We lived, and still do, by Gerber’s tenet—‘big business is just a small business that thought big.

“If you want to work in a business, get a job in somebody else’s business! But don’t go to work in your own. Because while you’re working, while you’re answering the telephone, while you’re baking pies, while you’re cleaning the windows and the floors, while you’re doing it, doing it, doing it, there’s something much more important that isn’t getti

“Delegation” as the term is customarily used, is a misunderstanding—is indeed misdirection. But getting rid of anything that can be done by somebody else so that one does not have to delegate but can really get to one’s own work—that is a major improvement in effectiveness.

Gerber’s three roles in a business: the entrepreneur’s job is to create the process, the manager’s job is to assure the process is used, and the technician’s job is to follow the process and use it.

the typical small business owner prefers Management by Abdication to Management by Delegation. Unfortunately, the inevitable result of this kind of thinking is that the business also grows to depend on the whims and moods of its people.