Monday, April 4, 2011

Learn to trust your judgement

Bureaucratisation of the workforce had amazing positive effects on the ability of businesses to stay in control even when they became so big that no one individual could possibly understand the whole business.

This bureaucracy is often implemented through hierarchies, with levels of management responsibility and financial delegations attached. This itself is good for control but is really bad for people’s self initiative.

We are all taught to second- guess all our decisions, to write up business cases, try to persuade time poor and often irrational senior managers of our case, and to justify everything we do.

When you set up your company you and your employees need to learn your own judgement again.

First you need to empower yourself to act on your judgements and not regret mistakes. Likewise, you will get the best out of your co-founders and employees if they can trust their own judgement and experience too.

This seems a trite comment, but it is amazing how little people trust their own judgement. It also seems that the greater the amount of university education the less we trust ourselves. Go figure. 

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