How to Unf*** Management

The late Paul Otellini, former CEO of Intel, passed on the iPhone when he was approached by Steve Jobs to make chips for what would become Apple’s signature product.  Justifying the decision years later, Otellini said that no one could have predicted the iPhone's success. Yet by the time the iPhone launched in 2007,, billions of phones were being sold annually, and the iPhone was a clearly a huge leap forward. Otellini should have delegated the decision to Intel's young engineers who, I suspect, would have seen the extraordinary upside.

Meta's $10 billion revenue hit (from Apple’s new privacy policy) underscores a simple point: A company that makes money by exploiting customer ignorance (“What’s the value of my personal data?,” “How do I change my privacy settings?”) will ultimately face a reckoning.

If you wonder why bureaucracy has been so persistent, it’s not that we lack alternatives--such as Haier, Nucor, Vinci, WL Gore, Buurtzorg and Morning Star. The real problem is that we lack alternatives that work for bureaucrats.

Alignment is a double-edge sword. While focus is good, too much alignment produces collective myopia. On average, large companies are more likely to be over-aligned (too much groupthink) than under-aligned.

Here's a question to test whether your organization is serious about innovation: "What's more likely to get you ahead at work--obedience or originality? If deference and conformance are the smartest career strategies, your company's in danger.

In most organizations the word "leader" has been hopelessly devalued. It tends to be applied to anyone in a managerial role. But, as you may have noticed, having subordinates doesn’t make someone a leader. So here's a better definition: A leader is someone who makes a catalytic contribution to collective accomplishment in difficult circumstances--whatever their role.

According to a poll by Gallup, only one in five employees feels their opinions matter at work, and fewer than one in four said they’re expected to innovate in their jobs. Sadly, it seems that many organizations waste more human capacity than they use.

In building the case against bureaucracy, we need more than theory and anecdotes. We need robust data on the prevalence and costs of bureau­cratic drag—the equivalent of the Body Mass Index. Let’s call it the "Bureaucratic Mass Index.” Click here to calculate the BMI for your organization

Here's a crazy (and profitable!) idea: Over the next 12 months, redirect your org's leadership development budget to equip frontline teams with the skills and tools they need to be self-managing. Guaranteed to raise your training ROI.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 70% of jobs in the American economy require little or no originality. This says nothing about the people in those jobs, and everything about how bureaucracy willfully squanders human ingenuity.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, what makes a job low skilled is not the nature of the work to be performed, or the credentials required, but the opportunities employees have to grow their capabilities and tackle new problems. 

Ask just about anyone to draw a picture of their organization and you’ll get the familiar pyramid of lines and boxes. Formal hierarchy is simple, scalable, and  seemingly timeless. It’s also a colossal liability in a lightspeed world.