Hi all,
Peopleware consistently presented counter-intuitive observations about the office. It did so by restating common theory into how the matter usually plays out in practice. Below are some of my favorites, arranged into the ‘good this, bad that’ structure I’ve used in the past.
In theory… I could go on explaining this for another thousand words.
In practice… I should probably just start, right?
Thanks for – in theory – reading.
Tim
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In theory… working overtime gives managers a defense if the project does not get done on time.
In practice… what incomplete project wouldn’t benefit from more time?
When a project doesn’t get done on time, it means the real reason cannot be identified or cannot be stated.
In theory… an autonomous employee is free to do something differently than the manager would have.
In practice… an autonomous employee makes the same decisions the manager would have made.
Autonomy does not mean teaching a team to think like its manager. Managers who do not allow or accept decisions that differ from what they would have done stamp out any semblance of autonomy in their teams.
In theory… a person without autonomy is of no use to a manager.
In practice… a manager prefers predictable and obedient.
A manager can motivate the team merely by trusting it with his or her reputation. Trust is the highest form of motivation.
In theory… companies with low turnover must be doing something amazing.
In practice… companies with low turnover must retrain constantly.
High turnover can mean departing employees are unable to find new roles within the organization. This is often due to a failure to retrain for new roles. Since many employees leave when they are not being trained very well to begin with, having better training can improve retention in two ways – employees will have less reason to leave a role and will have more opportunity to transition into new roles.
In theory…innovation is desired.
In practice… busyness limits innovation.
The most common way to limit innovation is to keep everyone busy. If employees have no time for anything except their assignments, when will they have time to innovate? In the worst organizations, innovation is framed as insubordination because innovations are evidence that an employee is spending time on something other than a specific assignment.
In theory… uniformity creates a sense of unity, camaraderie, and togetherness.
In practice… uniformity exposes the insecurity of management.
Too many companies suffer today because they lead through an outdated model of ‘the assembly line that produces widgets’. This method of management works if employees are indistinguishable from each other, the desired work output is always clear, and the method of production is primarily based on manpower. The less these factors apply, the less appropriate the assembly-line model of management.
In theory… professional means knowledgeable or competent.
In practice… professional means unsurprising.
I have nothing to add.
In theory…productivity improvements are permanent.
In practice…most easy productivity improvements have already been implemented.
This thought explains how problems we’ve solved keep coming back. Congestion is a good one. An extra lane of traffic is added to reduce traffic – next week, those who used to stay home because of the traffic start driving again… and create the next traffic jam.
In theory… a big project backlog is full of good projects to work on.
In practice… a big project backlog is a list of bad ideas to throw out.
Organizations always implement projects that will bring in a profit. This is a direct contradiction to the theory of the backlog – a list of ‘profitable’ projects that are mysteriously not being implemented. Once someone calculates the true cost-benefit ratio, a project in the backlog usually moves to the reject pile.
In theory… music does not inhibit thinking.
In practice… music may inhibit sudden bursts of inspiration or creativity.
This is all ‘left brain, right brain’ stuff (not an upcoming post!) and I’m not entirely sure I understand all of it. The basics are that since music is processed in the same side of the brain that also handles creativity, listening to music while working crowds out brain space and makes it less likely that a given worker will come up with creative solutions.
In theory… motivational posters remind employees of important concepts.
In practice… motivational posters confirm management’s fears.
The employee who looks at these posters all day eventually realizes that managers do not believe employees are capable of remembering critical job concepts on their own.
In theory… deadlines drive action and communicate importance.
In practice… deadlines reveal a reluctance to fund a low-value project beyond a particular date.
This point is better understood with a quick reminder about deadlines – if the project really must get done, everyone involved understands it and no one requires a deadline to keep things on track. The chief at a fire, for example, does not walk around reminding the firefighters of deadlines.
In theory… a ‘working meeting’ is a clever, value-added variation on the traditional meeting.
In practice… if there is ever such a thing as a ‘working meeting’, it implies the rest are ‘nonworking meetings’.
Easily negated adjective go a long way…
A similar phenomenon is the ‘stand-up meeting’. These are designed to move with greater efficiency and urgency than the traditional ‘sit-down meeting’. But all this really does is confirm that the traditional ‘sit-down meeting’ is inefficient and not urgent. Instead of having everyone stand up for certain meetings, a better use of time would involve studying sit-down meetings and determining why they are so unproductive.
