Hard Working

Idiots

Muhammad Jehanzeb Ahsan

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• Field Marshal in the WWII• Considered as one of the best war strategists of his time• categorized his officers into four types

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The Lazy and Stupid

• His advice was to leave them alone because they don’t do any harm.

Hardworking and Clever

• He said that they make great officers because they ensure everything runs smoothly

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es Lazy and Clever

• These, he says, should be your generals.

• Lazy people are always looking for easier, simpler, and less arduous ways to do things. If they are also clever, the chances are that they will find them, and make them available to everyone else.

• Lazy people are also natural delegators, and find it very attractive to let their subordinates get on with their work without interference from above.

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Hardworking Idiots

• get rid of these

• He says such people force those around them into pointless activities

• They were extremely hardworking—and demanded the same from their subordinates—but what they set others to work on (and what they spent their own time in doing) was mostly worthless

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• Today’s fast-paced, macho style of organizational culture creates, and then fosters, the hardworking idiot

• If you don’t look busy all the time, you’re virtually asking for a pink slip

• If all that matters is “meeting the numbers” and getting things done (whatever those things are), managers will be forced into working hard at projects that they know make no sense.

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• Reasons

• The dumbing down of organizations isn’t caused by poor educational standards or faulty recruitment.

• It’s due mostly to the crazy pace that is set, and the obsessive focus on the most obvious, rigidly short-term objectives. 

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iots •  unnecessary meetings

• The obsessive emphasis on staying in touch, regardless of need

• The torrents of e-mails

• The constant collecting of data for no clear reason

• Management by numbers 

• motivation by numerically-based performance measures

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Organization vs MachineYou do not need ethical insight or human understanding to operate a machine, and machines are how many of today’s leaders see their organization

• We can only hope some organizations at least see the error of their ways before the hardworking idiot becomes the commonest creature in the hierarchy.

• It’s no fun to be forced to deny your own intelligence on a daily basis.

• We can still reverse the trend, but only by dropping the current out-dated dogmas, dangerous half truths, and total nonsense that disfigure management thinking. Let’s do it before it is too late.

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