Seven golden rules of management

Here are 'my' seven golden rules of management:

1) Life at work is neither different from life at home nor from life in the world. One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself. This rule is equally applicable to work, whether the other person is customer, a shareholder, a boss, a colleague, a supplier or the person who takes care of the office building. We need all of them to come to a result.

2) Conflict kills cooperation. Therefore: select objectives that are located outside of yourself, preferably to the benefit of the company, the country and ideally to society in general.

3) Stop any gossip talk, even and especially if the gossip is true. Nothing is so detrimental to success. If you wouldn't say it in the presence of a particular person, don't say it at all. When you hear it, stop it and talk about something positive. After a while, the true gossip will prove to be untrue.

4) In a hierarchical system, all information going downward, from the top to the base, is amplified by a factor of 10 per level. All upward information, from base to top, is damped by a factor of 10 per level. (Exact formula for engineers is plus or minus 10*log n decibel , where n is the number of employees per department). This implies that top people should listen very well and that base people should speak up very well.

5) Every manager should be aware that he is walking around with a shiny purple party hat with big pink letters: "I am a manager!". The manager who denies being a clown is not worthy of being a manager. Wearing a tie may only help you stay aware of your festive attire.

6) Nothing happens by itself. If you didn't think of something, probably nobody did. You can still delegate what nobody has thought of but you have to bring it up. Otherwise Murphy's law applies: the slice of bread will always fall on the 'jam' side.

7) The wisdom of the Dakota indians teaches us that when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. Love your horse like yourself.

(Some inspiration came from Jeroen Bosch, Peter Drucker, Dilbert.com and manager-tools.com)

Meritocracy is merito-crazy

It is good to be aware of this. We live in a meritocracy. We are told we deserve to be what we are. If we go well, it is our merit. If we go bad, it is our own fault. The positive outcome of meritocracy is that it makes us work and that is good. But it is essentially based on a lie. We are not what we deserve to be. If we go well, it is not our merit. And if we go badly, it may be our own fault, but it usually isn't.

Why do I tell this today? Well, this morning, the gospels brought us the parable of the workers in the vineyard, one of my favourites. This parable basically tells us that God is against meritocracy. He rewards us according to our needs, not according to our merits. And if we go well, it is essentially by grace, not by merit.

Moreover, also 'secular' philosophers like Alain de Botton have pointed out that today's extreme meritocracy causes status anxiety and destroys happiness. The truth is: we have much less control over our lives than we think. If we don't go too well, we should do our best, but we shouldn't be blamed. And if we go well, we should recognise how lucky we have been to get there.

So we should admit that the waves of fortune are somewhat beyond our control. Management thinkers should also recognise this. Let us get rid of our merito-craziness.