Saturday, September 2, 2006

Thinking for a Living Recently read "Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performance and Results from Knowledge Workers" by Thomas H. Davenport. This book is based on research this Babson College professor has done. There are a few insights in the book, but I found it generally a light read and without a lot of depth. So, I was somewhat disappointed. But you can almost always learn something by reading, and here is a list with some points to ponder. New management priorities for managing knowledge workers (changes management may undergo): From overseeing work to doing it too From organizing hierarchies to organizing communities From hiring and firing workers to recruiting and retraining them From building manual skills to building knowledge skills From evaluating visible job performance to assessing invisible knowledge achievements From ignoring culture to building a knowledge-friendly culture From supporting the bureaucracy to fending it off From relying on internal personnel to considering a variety of sources Anything you see that hits home? Anything here that would cause you to rethink the way you're working right now? Any response at all? 9:03:08 AM    comment []

Soccer Stuff Been a little swamped the past couple of weeks. While we were finishing up production of the September issue of Automation World, I lost four referees for the season. I am the high school soccer referee assignor for about 37 high schools in central western Ohio. Just when I thought I had all the games filled, had two knees go and two guy have work schedule changes. Then this past week lost another guy to a knee and one to a back injury (he's only 20 and requires surgery, ouch). Finally got almost all those filled. Can't believe I've had time to blog at all. Or work, for that matter. The only rules thing I've had this year is on shinguards. National Federation rules (followed by high school in Ohio) state that the shinguards must have a hard front surface. I guess somewhere there's an enterprising entrepreneur who has developed a liquid gel shinguard. They will not be legal under NF rules. One coach, who is known to be always looking for loopholes, had a few kids in a scrimmage with the new ones. His quote, "They're in a catalog, they must be OK." That's the nonsense we deal with. By the way, his team (and he's been there a few years now) is not playing well. My advice to coaches is to drill the fundamentals and teach team play. Forget the loopholes and trickery. That's kind of like business, too. I'm off to work two college women matches this weekend. AR1 at Bluffton and Referee at Ohio Northern. It'll keep me busy and away from trouble (like cleaning solution sales girls). Hope you have a good weekend. 8:54:17 AM    comment []