Comments | shustrik: what vs. how

shustrik

what vs. how

Oct 25, 2005 15:21

"(Organizational) leadership today involves more than making the right decisions about WHAT should be done. In addition, executives must know HOW to orchestrate the human infrastructure to ensure there is enough support from the key people involved in a change effort to actually achieve the true purpose ( Read more... )

Comments 6

map_ka October 26 2005, 13:54:54 UTC

From my experience in corporate world "how" became important at the expense of "what"...and that's getting people upset - not just soviet immigrants, mind you, but the corn fed midwesterners as well. Concentrating on "what" needs to be achieved inevitably brings on a discussion of "how" best to do it. But explicit dwelling on "how" often pushes out "what" and, more importantly, "why". You do remember, that a camel is an example of a horse built by a committee?

shustrik October 26 2005, 20:59:45 UTC

Even if it is true (which is probably not 100% the case because economically this society is still pretty successful), it only confirms the fact that in this country "how" is more important than "what" - e.g., for one's career.

map_ka October 27 2005, 12:33:29 UTC

this society is still pretty successful<>this society is working at 100% efficiency (necessary but not sufficient condition)

Funny, the most successful enterprises seem to have an element of tyrany embedded. In the latest issue of US News and World report the benevolent Google was called authocratic. And I heard some stories about Jack Welsh (from people who worked in the insurance arm of GE) and Hank Greenberg that would make you wonder what would Stalin do as a CEO.

What ties down many immigrants is the inability to pick their battles. They tend to gravitate toward the extremes and then be labeled either a difficult person or a pushover.

OTOH, yours truly is known for slipping in things on which I am 100% willing to concede...so I wouldn't have to concede on anything really important.

shustrik November 4 2005, 20:52:18 UTC

Inability to pick the battles actually means that for them the "what" is always more important than "how" (or that they are unaware of the importance of the "how") - because they go to fight for an insignificant "what" when it's not worth it.

girit October 26 2005, 20:59:41 UTC

You do remember, that a camel is an example of a horse built by a committee ( ... )

shustrik October 26 2005, 21:09:17 UTC

>That might be true, but if I understand correctly what you'd allocate to 'whats' and 'hows' - it is typical (as far as we can generalize) not only to soviet union immigrants but to immigrants in general (and yes, many of them come from former non democratic societies, but not all). This is not just my observation ( ... )