I absolutely love this vision. I'm curious about what happens when you have a workforce made up of leaders though. My first thought was that it couldn't be practical, surely we need some people to be led. But then, working in an information age why not? A workforce that can dynamically reorganise itself down to the level of individuals could be extremely successful.
I hate this vision. Tell every child they're the next Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, and then let fail over and over again (which is the fate of most startups in the valley), and watch them get discouraged and drop out when they figure out that, structurally, only a few can win big, and a few more win enough to make a living.
The article is the worst sort of magical thinking, that because some people did X and became Y, we should all start doing X. Ironically, it decries the interchangeability of the current products of the education system while arguing for a different sort of interchangeability: A system where we're all entrepreneurs instead of factory workers. How does any idea where "we're all" something seem even remotely plausible?
If everybody knows how to lead, then nobody has to do much leading. Working on teams like that can be incredible; when an issue comes up, somebody's always ready to take responsibility for sorting it out. It lets people focus much more on the end goal rather than process.
It's a common misconception that leaders don't do any work. It's usually the opposite: they (at least the good ones) lead by doing the most amount of work, and the best quality of work. That's the only way to get any respect from followers.
The cynic in me says that you will never have a shortage of people who are willing to be led. It's less work, less responsibility, and less blame when things go wrong. All other things being equal, there will be plenty of people willing to take the path of least resistance.
If you are right, and I'm inclined to believe that you are, the problem then becomes how to educate such people so that they are useful in an increasingly high-tech world. Anyone who is content doing the low-responsibility grind is very unlikely to take entrepreneurial-level initiative in their own education, so the best method of training them really is the cog-in-the-machine style system that we have in place. The problem is not the existence of our meat grinder education, but the lack of existence of any alternative for people who don't fit in it (entrepreneurs, the terminally curious, smart people in general). Ironically, the author bemoans our one-size-fits-all approach and then proposes replacing it with another of the same characteristic. Really, we need both.
I think part of that is due to education. If you spend 12 years getting trained to sit there and do what others say, it's not surprising that you have that as your default.
It could be sample bias, but the friends I have who went to Montessori school, which trains people in self-direction and independence, seem to be much more willing to try things and to take responsibility for outcomes.
I have many coworkers (as an engineer) who would refuse (and in some cases, have refused in the past) a chance to have others working under them. They're just satisfied being told what to do, then doing it the best they know how.
Comments
I absolutely love this vision. I'm curious about what happens when you have a workforce made up of leaders though. My first thought was that it couldn't be practical, surely we need some people to be led. But then, working in an information age why not? A workforce that can dynamically reorganise itself down to the level of individuals could be extremely successful.
I hate this vision. Tell every child they're the next Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, and then let fail over and over again (which is the fate of most startups in the valley), and watch them get discouraged and drop out when they figure out that, structurally, only a few can win big, and a few more win enough to make a living.
The article is the worst sort of magical thinking, that because some people did X and became Y, we should all start doing X. Ironically, it decries the interchangeability of the current products of the education system while arguing for a different sort of interchangeability: A system where we're all entrepreneurs instead of factory workers. How does any idea where "we're all" something seem even remotely plausible?
If everyone is leading, who's doing the work?
Everybody.
If everybody knows how to lead, then nobody has to do much leading. Working on teams like that can be incredible; when an issue comes up, somebody's always ready to take responsibility for sorting it out. It lets people focus much more on the end goal rather than process.
It's a common misconception that leaders don't do any work. It's usually the opposite: they (at least the good ones) lead by doing the most amount of work, and the best quality of work. That's the only way to get any respect from followers.
The cynic in me says that you will never have a shortage of people who are willing to be led. It's less work, less responsibility, and less blame when things go wrong. All other things being equal, there will be plenty of people willing to take the path of least resistance.
If you are right, and I'm inclined to believe that you are, the problem then becomes how to educate such people so that they are useful in an increasingly high-tech world. Anyone who is content doing the low-responsibility grind is very unlikely to take entrepreneurial-level initiative in their own education, so the best method of training them really is the cog-in-the-machine style system that we have in place. The problem is not the existence of our meat grinder education, but the lack of existence of any alternative for people who don't fit in it (entrepreneurs, the terminally curious, smart people in general). Ironically, the author bemoans our one-size-fits-all approach and then proposes replacing it with another of the same characteristic. Really, we need both.
I think part of that is due to education. If you spend 12 years getting trained to sit there and do what others say, it's not surprising that you have that as your default.
It could be sample bias, but the friends I have who went to Montessori school, which trains people in self-direction and independence, seem to be much more willing to try things and to take responsibility for outcomes.
I have many coworkers (as an engineer) who would refuse (and in some cases, have refused in the past) a chance to have others working under them. They're just satisfied being told what to do, then doing it the best they know how.