The Simple-Minded ManagerSM:
Cutting Through the Chaos
By Forrest C. Greenslade, Ph.D.
From
The Simple-Minded Manager, Cutting Through Your Work-Life Chaos
We live in challenging times. There are so many demands, so many
choices. We struggle to fit everything into our busy yet divided
lives. Sometimes we feel like we're on a perpetual treadmill --
working harder and harder but going nowhere ... fast!
I remember a discussion I had with an old boss. He was telling
me how hard he worked, and how much he needed a break. I countered
by telling him how hard I was working. Surely, I worked harder and
was more stressed than he.
We went back and forth, each growing more red-faced. Then
suddenly, I stopped. Why was I competing with my boss? Here I was
entering this contest, trying to determine who worked more. But
who cared? Somehow I had fallen into the all-too-common trap of
thinking that my value as a person rested on how hard I worked or
how stressed I was.
We work in a global, interconnected, complicated -- and 24-hour
-- economy. Technology only adds to the burden. E-mails, Faxes, Cell
phones, Beepers intruding constantly into our lives. We are caught
in the shuffle of being better, faster, and cheaper than the
competition.
It just never stops.
A young man named William found the solution to all this. William
was born in a little town near London. He entered into the
Franciscan Order at an early age and studied math and logic. Later,
William took a traditional course of studies at Oxford University,
and began to write and lecture on his ideas. Unfortunately,
William's opinions so offended the faculty at Oxford that he left
the University without completing his Masters Degree. William
constantly challenged the authority of those who dogmatically held
to complex and confusing organizational theories. William believed
in simplicity as a way of cutting through all the confusion and
making sense of it all.
William cut through all of this complexity with one simple
phrase... Frustra fit per plura, quod fieri potest per
pauciora
A rough translation of William's idea is, "the simplest of
theories is preferable" or "the simpler the explanation,
the closer to the truth".
I should probably tell you that William was born in the year
1285. The little town near London was called Ockham. William used
this simple logic so effectively to cut through the confusing
theories of the day, the idea became known as "Ockham's
Razor"
What William of Ockham challenged were the complex theological
"truths" of the day. New ideas and technologies from
scientific inquiry were colliding directly with the old accepted
premises. Ockham's Razor cut through the complexity.
Even then, people believed they lived in a complex and confusing
world!
Are things really any different today than they were in the 14th
century?
New ideas, technologies and human relationships are colliding
with long-accepted organizational "truths". Managerial and
organization development theorists propagate increasingly complex
constructs about us, and our institutions. Most of us yearn for a
few fundamental ideas to help simplify our chaotic lives.
Information now travels at the speed of light, but the process
that happens between the ears is the same as ever before. Human
nature hasn't changed. Fundamentally, we are the same people as
those who lived in the 14th Century.
Technology has changed, so perhaps we should call the 21st
Century version of William's idea Ockham's LaserSM. The
point remains the same. The way to simplify our lives is to cut
through the chaos and elucidate those issues that are most important
to each of us.
Use Ockham's LaserSM to simplify, simplify, simplify.
Use Ockham's LaserSM to lead more productive and meaningful lives.
I believe that it is possible to build decisive organizations
that respect the right, need, and ability of workers to be good
people and parents and have productive careers. It will be the
responsibility of tomorrow's leaders to do so. Finding simple
explanations and bringing about simple solutions to today's
apparently complex organizational problems requires each of us to be
more simple-minded.
Only the Simple-Minded ManagerSM can cut through the
chaos.
*Simple-Minded Manager and Ockham's Lazer are service
marks of Greenslade, LLC
Buy
The Simple-Minded Manager online from Amazon.com!
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