3 ms·

What your casual elitism disregards is that people who actually do the work can have different ideas, especially related to the work they are doing. Put another

What your casual elitism disregards is that people who actually do the work can have different ideas, especially related to the work they are doing. Put another way, since they have a different perspective than the higher-ups, they are sometimes able to find potential efficiencies and product improvements that wouldn't occur to others. Additionally, front-line workers can see real problems with how customers experience the product that may not be reflected in the metrics used to evaluate the product, since metrics are inevitably gamed. The ratio of good to bad ideas doesn't matter if you miss the one good idea you really needed. A company that invests in ways to effectively use the ideas of 'untrained people', as you so delicately put it, can derive a lot of value from those ideas.

bumby 7y ago
I think you're right. The front-line workers often have a certain level of ground-truth about how processes actually work in practice. They may not have all the same information as the higher-ups, but they have a very unique and valuable perspective that can be used to improve strategic decisions. IMO, this is one of the reasons why distributed command (as opposed to centralized command) models often work better, particularly in a fast moving environment.
squirrelicus 7y ago
A CEO only has to be right 51% of the time to be successful.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  That really depends.
  - squirrelicus 7y ago
    Sure, my statement is merely metaphorically true. It's meant to communicate the point that the CEO must optimize for being right enough frequently enough to be successful. Competition surely drives whatever that number is up, and good managers surely listen to the ideas from their line workers. And they must mentally triage ideas to be worth considering more deeply. The best managers credit the line workers and encourage more idea sharing. But the manager must do the triage, and the manager must ignore ideas that don't pass the bar, and the manager must empower only those that have a track record of producing good ideas and not the others.

bumby 7y ago

I think you're right. The front-line workers often have a certain level of ground-truth about how processes actually work in practice. They may not have all the same information as the higher-ups, but they have a very unique and valuable perspective that can be used to improve strategic decisions. IMO, this is one of the reasons why distributed command (as opposed to centralized command) models often work better, particularly in a fast moving environment.

squirrelicus 7y ago

A CEO only has to be right 51% of the time to be successful.

erikpukinskis 7y ago
That really depends.
- squirrelicus 7y ago
  Sure, my statement is merely metaphorically true. It's meant to communicate the point that the CEO must optimize for being right enough frequently enough to be successful. Competition surely drives whatever that number is up, and good managers surely listen to the ideas from their line workers. And they must mentally triage ideas to be worth considering more deeply. The best managers credit the line workers and encourage more idea sharing. But the manager must do the triage, and the manager must ignore ideas that don't pass the bar, and the manager must empower only those that have a track record of producing good ideas and not the others.