[geeks] Stuff most of us already knew about suits

[Phil Stracchino]

Mike Meredith wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 15:23:29 -0400, Phil Stracchino wrote:
> 
>>http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/96/open_boss.html
> 
> 
> Well we may have known about it, but it is nice to have confirmation
> from someone who knows abnormal psychology. I'd have said they were
> sociopaths, but I guess that just means I've forgotten too much abnormal
> psychology.

I could be mistaken here, but I seem to recall hearing a while back that
current psychological theory and/or terminology no longer distingishes
between 'sociopath' and 'psychopath', rolling both into the 'psychopath'
term.

> It is a shame they didn't go a bit further and point out that it is the
> conventional hierarchical management structure that allows such
> psychopaths to thrive without restraint. To avoid that it would be
> useful to change how organisations are structured. Designing a
> new structure might be a difficult problem, but surely not one that is
> beyond the wit of man.

That'd be an interesting project.

> For a start, not only should managers do a 'performance evaluation' of
> their flunkies, but their flunkies should do the same for them.

A lot of the better companies already do this.  I suspect in most of the
ones where there's a real problem, turning in a bad review of your
manager -- unless it's totally anonymous -- would just get you fired.


-- 
 Phil Stracchino       phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net
    Renaissance Man, Unix generalist, Perl hacker
 Mobile: 603-216-7037         Landline: 603-886-3518