
A critique of Accelerate (XLR8) by John Kotter - tckr
https://blog.coderbyheart.com/why-i-threw-up-in-my-mouth-when-reading-accelerate-xlr8-by-john-kotter
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jimnotgym
I have a theory, and this commentary kind of backs it up. You ave so much
mental energy to give and so much physical energy to give.

So you can either work staff really hard to get a project out and then accept
an unproductive time to follow, or you can accept a more average effort over a
longer period.

Personally the hardest mix is 9-5 of regular work and then having to come up
with inspirational ideas and solutions. This keeps me up all night and burns
me out.

This 150% nonsense sounds like trying screw an extra bit of work out of your
staff in terms of innovation, without giving them the space to think.

Good blog OP

~~~
khaledtaha
I also have a similar theory. I believe rewarding work (interesting projects
of passion) encourages employees because it provides them with energy and
unrewarding work (monotonous, boring tasks) discourages employees because it
drains energy. Interestingly, one could also burn out on rewarding work
because it eventually starts consuming energy due to the obsessiveness it
fosters. That's when unrewarding work is welcomed.

The problem is that if you're not innovative you will never understand how to
encourage it others until you change within. You will read books and attend
seminars with the buzzword of the month and it'll all make sense in theory but
the practice of it will allude you and you will fall into old habits.
Companies that need to become more innovative have to start at the beginning
and at the very top and make this a company-wide cultural shift rather than
making it a few individuals delegated overtime responsibility.

~~~
tckr
There are great books about making innovation your default culture. I highly
recommend reading "An Everyone Culture" which is about creating Deliberate
Learning Organizations: [https://blog.coderbyheart.com/an-everyone-
culture](https://blog.coderbyheart.com/an-everyone-culture)

~~~
jimnotgym
Books on management theory only work for people who already made the conscious
shift and just want to _refine_ their thinking imho

~~~
tckr
Well, everybody starts somewhere. And books greatly help (me) to get more
input and some books (like An Everyone Culture) are so outstanding and unique,
that it's worth reading them even if you are not in the position to change an
organization.

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scotty79
I think that unspoken idea in the book is that people in corporations work
half of the time they spend there to do useful things and the other half they
just sit or walk around, suffering, bored out of their minds. I think the
author just sees opportunity in providing them with something exciting to do
during that time.

~~~
tckr
Yes, you could argue that in a hierarchy 50% of your time is spent with
superfluous activity, like useless reports, endless meetings, and that you
don't spend energy there … which you can put to good use within the network.

But this is a fallacy: if the hierarchy is your default you will never achieve
your full potential working in a network organization.

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pjc50
Isn't the idea of having volunteer super-employees exceeding the regular
production literally Stakhanovism?

Most organisations above Dunbar's number have some level of unacknowledged
problems in the "formal" system. It ends up not being as productive as the
formal figures would indicate. So people use the informal system to back-fill
their quotas. This means the informal system isn't available to increase
visible-to-management production, because it's already being used to make up
for the deficiencies of the formal system.

~~~
tckr
Right. He thinks that because having a very compelling and inspiring objective
you will put in extra effort to contribute towards it. The "celebration of
wins" also further incourages you to keep pushing.

What might happen is that once you achieve The Big Opportunity, you can get
back to your normal 100% job in the hierarchy; but who would want that?!

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jones1618
The article is exactly right.

It sounds like XLR8 isn't wrong in that identifies the two main activities of
a growing business: 1) Making their bread-and-butter work as efficient as
possible and 2) Innovating to multiply opportunities and inefficiencies. In
short, a company needs to streamline and explore. But, advocating that the
networking and exploration required for #2 is an offline, voluntary activity
is foolish, dangerous even.

I've worked in a variety of organizations of different sizes, in different
industries and different states of startup or maturity and found one
consistent pattern for failing organizations: They start to routinely tell
people to "stay in their lane" at work and respond to new ideas with "Sounds
great! As soon as these low value, high effort activities are done you can
work on those high value, low effort ideas in your spare time." That's the
beginning of brain death for a company. The body soon follows.

Instead, strong companies with strong leadership know that it isn't their
employees responsibility to be more efficient and productive at low-value,
high-effort activities. It is the leadership's responsibility to root out and
eliminate those activities either by automating, out-sourcing or de-
prioritizing them. The right way to streamline a business is to listen to
employees and relentlessly cut, kill, and destroy routine or low-value work.

As you do that, you free up and empower employees and the organization to
leverage high-value work in front of them and explore and pursue high-value
opportunities on the horizon. In a healthy, growing organization those are
everyday (during the day) activities not after-hours, side-projects that force
employees to sneak time from work or steal time from their families.

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keithpeter
" _The second example works only because what is getting worn out during work
in today’s businesses are cognitive resources. Coming home from a computerized
workplace working on spreadsheets does not affect your ability to creatively
wield a hammer and a saw._ "

I work in a Further Education college in the UK (like a community college in
US). We are seeing a lot of people paying full cost for evening/weekend
courses on dress making, hairdressing/barbering, welding, decorating &c. Might
try a questionnaire to see where the students are coming from in new year.
Hypothesis: a lot of badge folk.

~~~
tckr
What is/are "badge folk"?

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meheleventyone
A perjorative term for people that take a lot of courses is "badge collector".
Usually for people more interested in the credentials than the material.

~~~
tckr
Okay. You might be correct.

But I think their motivation is different, they invest their spare time to
advance their career, which serves a clear purpose and this is a great
motivator. That is different compared to working over-time for the advancement
of their employers.

Also, these courses have a clear timeframe and a clear defined curriculum
which you can plan for.

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bryanrasmussen
"Asking your employees to think different for a better goal and simultaneously
forcing them to follow the old, left-side methods, which the right-side is
trying to get rid of, is nothing but insanity."

Well it's also the behavior of revolutionary heroes in a dystopian novel who
inevitably get either betrayed, corrupted, or killed. So there is also that.

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recentdarkness
Well sounds like instructions to modern slavery

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CrazyCatDog
Interesting critique, but you close by recommending your own (supposedly
superior) brand of management training and provide a convenient link--all of
which is packaged in a blog post that you posted on HN.

I should have known better. As soon as I read your advertisement I felt like I
had been had, like this was all an elaborate rouse to sell hr management
services.

Bummer

~~~
tckr
Yes, I work for a company that tries to change organizations to the better.
The experiences I make doing that gives me a good insight on what actually
works and what does not.

What would be your preferred way how I publish this kind of content?

~~~
CrazyCatDog
If you are promoting your own blog posts, them I would add a quick disclaimer
at the top of the blog post, simply revealing that you have a dog in this
fight. That will either give authority to what follows, or not. Either way,
the reader is afforded the chance to decide ex-ante.

~~~
tckr
I've added a subtitle to the header below my role. That should make it clear.

~~~
CrazyCatDog
You rock, thank you.

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spraak
Unrelated: I like this blog's font

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gravypod
Is it consolas or something?

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keithpeter

        body{font-size:100%;font-family:"Ubuntu Mono",
        "Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif}
        .wc-container{width:90%;max-width:768px;margin:0 auto}
    

user below got there first.

