Kevin Drum: Technology Is the Key to Success, But Probably Not the Technology You Enjoy: "I’d put it more bluntly: unless they’re forced to at the point of a metaphorical gun... service-sector managers are lazy... in a very specific way: they don’t really understand technology...
...hey don’t want to understand technology; and they refuse to bother making their underlings understand technology. They much prefer to do all they stuff they enjoy doing instead: schmoozing customers, holding meetings, reading and writing reports, and so on. As near as I can tell, this hasn’t changed much in the past 20 years, and it’s surprisingly true even in tech companies themselves.... They still don’t care much about the technology behind logistics and marketing and operations. It’s just too boring. And so they leave money on the table. But so does everyone else, so hardly anyone notices since plenty of cash is rolling in anyway. This needs to change. In the same way that successful companies in the 50s benefited from rigorous old-school management techniques that needed to be daily routines, successful companies today need to really, truly, and rigorously insist that everyone from the vice presidents down understands and uses the best possible technology. Stop complaining that it’s boring. Stop complaining that it’s hard to use. Stop complaining that typing is hard because of your arthritis or whatever your excuse of the week is.
If you’re not spending ten hours out of every week deeply engaged with other managers and lower-level workers about the technology that runs your company and how to make it better, then you’re probably wasting your time. Most of you probably spend more time understanding your latest favorite videogame or internet chatroom than you do on the technology that your entire company sits on top of. Good technology, diligently and rigorously applied, is what differentiates companies today. Use it. Hire only people who are willing to use it. And fire anyone who won’t...
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