While I'm normally a fan of Derek's musings, this one is too pithy for me. He is painting with too broad of a brush. There are all kinds of reasons why you might tell an employee to make small changes: maybe one small change will have a big impact; maybe many small changes in aggregate will have a big impact; maybe the employee doesn't want to take ownership; maybe the employee is too junior to take ownership; maybe the employee wants to learn the nuances of the profession in greater detail; maybe the employee is an underperformer; I could go on like this indefinitely as could many other experienced managers.
Now maybe if you're employing a bunch of independent-thinking artistic, creative and intelligent types this generalization makes sense. But I'm sure the global workforce has substantially more than 1 billion members who don't fit this definition. In that light it seems a little irresponsible to put this thought out there like it's a zen koan.
Now maybe if you're employing a bunch of independent-thinking artistic, creative and intelligent types this generalization makes sense. But I'm sure the global workforce has substantially more than 1 billion members who don't fit this definition. In that light it seems a little irresponsible to put this thought out there like it's a zen koan.