6 ms·

> In every place I've been, school, university, corporate jobs, the "critical thinkers" always got marginalised. Because while they get things done, they chall

by adekok 10y ago

> In every place I've been, school, university, corporate jobs, the "critical thinkers" always got marginalised. Because while they get things done, they challenge the status quo. When I've worked for large companies, the #1, #2, and #3 products of the company were management politics. Actually shipping anything was #4, maybe #5. Critical thinkers looked at that and went "we could do better", and got punished for it.

guitarbill 10y ago
Sure, but that's sad. Q: Why not get everybody involved with #1-#5? A: Because that's more effort for management, and they'd have to trust their staff. (Sometimes it depends on how well you go about this, aka. soft skills, but often there's no way to sell it other than get involved with company politics for 2+ years) I'd also argue that at large companies, getting stuff shipped isn't usually the hardest part, not stagnating is. "How could we do things better" can be a pretty huge and valuable question in large places.
dustingetz 10y ago
i think command and control management structures have a lot of benefits at scale. Maybe at scale a company's competitive edge is essentially about executing on information, and information asymmetry, which is why things like trust and politics are more important than shipping efficiently. Just an idea.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  Not sure I'm following. Can you elaborate?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
dingbat 10y ago
in a large company, if the main products are management politics, as you say, a capable critical thinker ought to be able to dominate that game, instead of focusing on relatively unimportant priorities like "shipping". if someone tends to get marginalized, by definition that means they are ineffective at "getting things done".
- bsder 10y ago
  > in a large company, if the main products are management politics, as you say, a capable critical thinker ought to be able to dominate that game, instead of focusing on relatively unimportant priorities like "shipping". Um, they do exactly that? Upper managers are notorious for spending most of their time playing politics and very little time delivering product.
  - dingbat 10y ago
    person i was responding to was defining "critical thinkers" as the ones who get sidelined and punished for challenging the status quo and focusing on priorities that are secondary (in fact not even secondary, #4, #5) to the purported main product of large companies, which is political gamesmanship. so, alleged "critical thinkers" in this context are just the frustrated losers who think they are the one who get things done (which everyone thinks of themselves), but who actually focus on the wrong things to get done, while also rendering themselves ineffective even in that effort.
    - ACow_Adonis 10y ago
      You're definition of "get things done" is Orwellian in its inanity... Edit: as per your notion that critical thinkers should apparently just play the game better, rather than...I don't know...think critically/critique it. Are we even talking the same language?
      - dingbat 10y ago
        please read the comments i am responding to. the comment i am responding to is positing that in large companies, the main product is political game-playing (i do not necessarily believe that this is true), stating that delivering and shipping what people typically think of as "product" is #4 and #5 at best (again, i think that is a distorted generalization). at the same time, the comment i am replying to posits that "critical thinkers" are the effective people in an organization who are really the ones who get things done. at the same time stating that these people who get things done are sidelined, punished and rendered ineffective by the organization. at the same time stating that these same people are the ones who are focused on low-priority items in that organization. i agree with you, taken together, those statements are rather inane.. not only that but also wildly inconsistent, an ironic example of sloppy critical thinking. i do not know where you get the impression that critical thinkers "should" play the game better. i am stating the obvious (which apparently isnt), that you would expect truly effective critical thinkers to be very good at focusing on the main priority within an organization, which based on the definitions defined by the previous commentor, is not "shipping product", but rather playing the game better. i disagree with that conclusion, but it is a consistent conclusion that follows assumptions that i also think are flawed. in fact, assuming the negative assumptions about large organizations are valid, truly effective critical thinkers in such an organization would be able to see thru typical "mission statements" about delivering great product and service yada yada ... and instead focus on the accumulation of individual power and influence, if that is the main purpose of any human group. "the true organization man is the one who is most skeptical [aka critically thinking] about the organization"... or something like that. anyway, critical thinking and emotionalism (bitterness and resentment about the unfairness of it all) would seem to be mutually opposed.

by adekok 10y ago

guitarbill 10y ago

Sure, but that's sad. Q: Why not get everybody involved with #1-#5? A: Because that's more effort for management, and they'd have to trust their staff. (Sometimes it depends on how well you go about this, aka. soft skills, but often there's no way to sell it other than get involved with company politics for 2+ years) I'd also argue that at large companies, getting stuff shipped isn't usually the hardest part, not stagnating is. "How could we do things better" can be a pretty huge and valuable question in large places.

dustingetz 10y ago

i think command and control management structures have a lot of benefits at scale. Maybe at scale a company's competitive edge is essentially about executing on information, and information asymmetry, which is why things like trust and politics are more important than shipping efficiently. Just an idea.

enraged_camel 10y ago
Not sure I'm following. Can you elaborate?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

dingbat 10y ago

in a large company, if the main products are management politics, as you say, a capable critical thinker ought to be able to dominate that game, instead of focusing on relatively unimportant priorities like "shipping". if someone tends to get marginalized, by definition that means they are ineffective at "getting things done".

bsder 10y ago
> in a large company, if the main products are management politics, as you say, a capable critical thinker ought to be able to dominate that game, instead of focusing on relatively unimportant priorities like "shipping". Um, they do exactly that? Upper managers are notorious for spending most of their time playing politics and very little time delivering product.
- dingbat 10y ago
  person i was responding to was defining "critical thinkers" as the ones who get sidelined and punished for challenging the status quo and focusing on priorities that are secondary (in fact not even secondary, #4, #5) to the purported main product of large companies, which is political gamesmanship. so, alleged "critical thinkers" in this context are just the frustrated losers who think they are the one who get things done (which everyone thinks of themselves), but who actually focus on the wrong things to get done, while also rendering themselves ineffective even in that effort.
  - ACow_Adonis 10y ago
    You're definition of "get things done" is Orwellian in its inanity... Edit: as per your notion that critical thinkers should apparently just play the game better, rather than...I don't know...think critically/critique it. Are we even talking the same language?
    - dingbat 10y ago
      please read the comments i am responding to. the comment i am responding to is positing that in large companies, the main product is political game-playing (i do not necessarily believe that this is true), stating that delivering and shipping what people typically think of as "product" is #4 and #5 at best (again, i think that is a distorted generalization). at the same time, the comment i am replying to posits that "critical thinkers" are the effective people in an organization who are really the ones who get things done. at the same time stating that these people who get things done are sidelined, punished and rendered ineffective by the organization. at the same time stating that these same people are the ones who are focused on low-priority items in that organization. i agree with you, taken together, those statements are rather inane.. not only that but also wildly inconsistent, an ironic example of sloppy critical thinking. i do not know where you get the impression that critical thinkers "should" play the game better. i am stating the obvious (which apparently isnt), that you would expect truly effective critical thinkers to be very good at focusing on the main priority within an organization, which based on the definitions defined by the previous commentor, is not "shipping product", but rather playing the game better. i disagree with that conclusion, but it is a consistent conclusion that follows assumptions that i also think are flawed. in fact, assuming the negative assumptions about large organizations are valid, truly effective critical thinkers in such an organization would be able to see thru typical "mission statements" about delivering great product and service yada yada ... and instead focus on the accumulation of individual power and influence, if that is the main purpose of any human group. "the true organization man is the one who is most skeptical [aka critically thinking] about the organization"... or something like that. anyway, critical thinking and emotionalism (bitterness and resentment about the unfairness of it all) would seem to be mutually opposed.