“Anne Chow (the author) is lead director on FranklinCovey’s Board of Directors and co-author of the best-selling book, “The Leader’s Guide to Unconscious Bias.” Chow is the former CEO of AT&T Business and was twice featured as one of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in Business.”
Summary: The ex-AT&T CEO author writes an entire article to interpret some “survey data” so she can voice her opinion on behalf of a demographic she doesn’t belong to. Author fails to even reference the names of those survey data sources.
I think it's good that someone in an executive position (or at least presumably able to influence others who are in executive positions) is realizing this and writing about this. If only workers are pushing the idea of flexible work arrangements, and all executives are still on the "come to an office 9-5 or else" train, it's not going to go very well.
And I don't think she was trying to speak for individual contributors. She was focusing on the concept that, for a business, the "what" and "why" of what gets done is what really matters, not the "where" or "when".
It was notable to me that she also mentioned leaving the "how" to employees to figure out, and that it's widely understood already that managers who micromanage don't have successful teams (not saying there aren't still terrible managers, but...). Management also needs to recognize that the "where" and "when" should also not be micromanaged.
IMO it’s valuable that the author tells my boss to focus asking me “how” and “why” I want to do things.
This value is partially lost when they use the leading caption & bottom half of their article to sell my boss on survey results via a particular demographic favoring one particular “how” and “why” outcome.
As it should be. As a manager, you're better off hiring smart people and letting them do their jobs than hiring complacent people and telling them what to do.
They will question your decisions and directions instead of blindly following them. You can have curious employees, or obedient employees, but usually not both. You can somewhat pave over this with comp (tech does this), but most of the economy cannot.
I’ve always thought of that as something like “first order smart”. Smart enough to start forming opinions fast but not able to decouple from the need to analyze enough to “just work.” Or patience. Or something.
There are many jobs at which I would personally underperform out of sheer boredom, possibly inventing ways to stay entertained. Army Infantry, cashier, call center worker, landscaper, night watchman, and hundreds of others where well over half of the population would outperform me.
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[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 34.7 ms ] threadAnd I don't think she was trying to speak for individual contributors. She was focusing on the concept that, for a business, the "what" and "why" of what gets done is what really matters, not the "where" or "when".
It was notable to me that she also mentioned leaving the "how" to employees to figure out, and that it's widely understood already that managers who micromanage don't have successful teams (not saying there aren't still terrible managers, but...). Management also needs to recognize that the "where" and "when" should also not be micromanaged.
This value is partially lost when they use the leading caption & bottom half of their article to sell my boss on survey results via a particular demographic favoring one particular “how” and “why” outcome.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...
https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...