I received the following e-mail the other day.
Denny, love your web site although I am a little disappointed you haven't talked about your company in awhile. I can relate. Our company is in the middle of six sigma and "best practices" The most overused stupid phrase. what a bunch of bullshit. what they should really do for cost savings and best practices is fire all of the incompetent managers.
Oh! My! God! Is six sigma still around? I thought that bullshit was long gone. How 90's! At TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name) we went through six sigma over ten years ago. We had a joke about it.
The CEO, the senior VP, and a lowly programmer were taken hostage and held for ransom by Arab terrorists. The company was willing to ransom the programmer, but told the terrorists that they could keep the CEO and senior VP. The terrorists said it was all or nothing, so it was curtains for the hostages. They would all be shot. The terrorists did give each of them one last request before they would be shot.
CEO: I want to give one last speech about six sigma.
Senior VP: I want to give one last speech about best practices.
Lowly Programmer: Shoot me first!
Best processes. Have you ever had to scope a process? We had a freaking class on that. I cannot stand FQP's (Quality Programs).
I have done a lot of thinking over the past few months and my new friend Marcel ( the crow was rather tasty) was right. I am burned out and one of the reasons is all the FQP's and other bureaucratic bullshit I have endured over the last 31 years at TCIDNN.
Here's the best FQP, and I'm sure that as a small business owner Marcel would agree with me.
1. Hire good people.
2. Tell them what you want done.
3. Get the fuck out of their way and let them do their jobs.
4. Don't bog them down with excessive meetings, FQP's and bullshit Diversity Awareness classes.
Unfortunately, the larger the company, the more bullshit is involved with your job. I wrote about my experience with six sigma at TCIDNN when I wrote about Green Hat School.
Here's a warning: Whenever you walk into a classroom, the chairs (or tables) are arranged in a U shape, you have a Ken and Barbie and they call themselves facilitators, it's gonna be a long day (or two).
Green Hat School was a pain in the ass, because it was the antithesis of what it was trying to teach. Here's an example.
They put down a checkerboard carpet which was five squares wide and ten squares long. There were sensors under the carpet that beeped when one stepped on the wrong square. The point was to get everyone in class (Except me. I'm a cripple, ya know.) to be able to walk from one end of the carpet to the other without stepping on any of the squares that beeped. Oh! And talking was forbidden.
So, I sat and watched this exercise. There were people walking and people pointing. Finally, the class figgered out the system and people began confidently walking the carpet. After about half the class had made it across the carpet successfully, Ken flipped a switch and all of a sudden squares that didn't beep started beeping. Holy shit! Sumpin' changed! Now the class had to go back to pointing and walking to figger out the new system.
The point of this exercise was to demonstrate how markets change and we have to react to them. I went up to Ken and Barbie after the class and I asked them what would they have done if they had walked in on a class full fo people in wheelchairs. Their market had just changed. How would they react to it? They just looked at me totally clueless.
The sum total of all this was they wasted two days of my time. None of this bullshit really applied to me. I'm not in marketing. I'm a grunt. The people who need a lot of this bullshit are managers and marketing reps. The managers' Green Hat School was three days long. Unfortunately, I didn't notice any change in management. Most of 'em were just as fucked up as ever.
Later on, there was another Green Hat School follow on course. My manager told me I had to take it. Like I do with most FQP's is drag my feet and delay enrolling in the class. Sometimes they go away. This time it did. We had a management change and the new manager thought this was a waste of time and money. He was right.
Let's go back to my rules.
1. Hire good people.
There are a lot of them out there. I know. I've worked with them. I've seen a lot of them laid off because our management fucked up and lost business. Maybe their market changed and they didn't respond to it. Maybe they should have paid attention in Green Hat School.
2. Tell them what you want done.
We went to a bullshit system where we set our own goals and commitments. What a bunch of new age crap just like six sigma and best processes. What's a manager for? He's supposed to know the needs of the business and he should be tellling you what your job is not the other way around. One of my goals I set last year was remaining employed until May of 2005.
3. Get the fuck out of their way and let them do their jobs.
People should enjoy their jobs. If you have hired the right people and given them the proper motivation it should make the manager's job easier. I do not know why more managers do not understand sumpin' as simple as this. The best manager I ever had told me what he expected of me and got out of my way. He didn't bother me with a lot of administrivia and meetings. And here's a great quote from Thomas Sowell:
People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.
Amen to that! That brings me to number 4.
4. Don't bog them down with excessive meetings, FQP's and bullshit Diversity Awareness classes.
In the organization I work for now, I have to attend two meetings a week: My team meeting which is productive, friendly and informal and the Inquisition Meeting, which is pretty much a waste of time since it mainly duplicates what we have covered in our team meeting. The difference is this one is held with our manager and the PMICOUM (Peoject Manager In Charge Of Useless Meetings). Here we get to hear a recap of the other teams' meetings (Like I really want to hear that.) and some measurement numbers. What would make more sense and be more productive is for my manager (I have a new one since my old CDSMŽ(Clueless Dipshit Manager) was promoted to his manager's position. He retired right after the surgery to remove my CDSMŽ's lips from his ass. I always give a new manager the benefit of the doubt until he/she shows me that he/she is competent or an incompetent boob.) and the PMICOUM to sit in on the team meetings (which we conduct over the phone) and have the numbers guy join in. This would be one less meeting and allow the grunts to be more productive.
We have another fun meeting that I call the Waste Fifteen Minutes Every Other Tuesday Call. On that call, all the regulars call in and we tell the rest of the group about what projects we're working on. Like I really give a shit about what everyone outside of my team is doing. I DON'T FUCKING CARE! YOU'RE WASTING MY FUCKING TIME! Aaaarrrggghhhhh!
My department consists of one manager.
We have Four Project Managers:
1.The PMICOUM.
2. The PMICOABS (Project Manager In Charge Of Administrative BullShit) He's the guy who makes sure our SHTS is in on time and correct. He also monitors expenses and makes sure our expense accounts are submitted in a timely manner. I would hate his job!
3. The PMWAGSD (The Project Manager Who Actually Gets Shit Done). Whenever there is an important project that must succeed, he gets the nod. He does it with a minimum of meetings.
4. The PMTIDHACATWHD (Project Manager That I Don't Have A Clue As To What He Does) He has an office next door to mine and I still don't have a clue as to what he does. He manages some servers and he gets to use one of our Operations co-ops part of the time. That's all I know. Really. Honest.
We have about 15 regular employees and about 10 contractors and co-ops. <dirtyoldman> Some of the co-ops are cute, innocent looking college girls. Yowza!</dirtyoldman>
We are overmanaged. We need less meetings. Leave us alone! Let us do our jobs!
As I said, I'm burned out and all it would take would be another bullshit FQP and that might be enough to push me out the door. Maybe that's why they have 'em: To push old farts like me out the door.
It might work.