

50 Ways to Get Things Done (old but relevant) - gscott
http://www.fastcompany.com/fast50_02/all50.html

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mixmax
A word of caution.....

A lot of the "get things done" and "get better fast" solutions that are
floating around draw from experiences of successful people or organisations,
extrapolate from this and present what they have done as the best solution.
This, however does not take into consideration what is cause and what is
effect.

For instance, if you take 50 companies and let them follow this advice (from
the article)

\- Bet the company

\- Think big

\- Prescribe change

\- Reach for the sky

\- Set your sites high

\- Commit to change

what you will see 5 years later is that 40 of the companies have gone bankrupt
because they bet the company and reached for the sky. But all that is apparent
to the casual observer is the 10 companies that have success, and all that is
observed is their often risky strategies that have led them to their success.

To drive the point home: In 1982 Tom Peters and Robert Waterman did exactly
this, they investigated a number of successful companies and saw what they had
done that noone else was doing. And they concluded that this was what you
should do if you wanted to be successful, and thereby completely ignored cause
and effect. Their studies were published in the business bestseller "in search
of excellence".

And what if you look at the companies that they investigated today? Many are
bankrupt, and many are in financial trouble. Only a few are doing really well.

One of the companies that "did all the right things" was Atari.

This was actually one of the primary reasons I left business school. I
basically thought "these guys have no idea what they are talking about" - and
a lot of them still don't...

