Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is.
The 27 Articles of T.E. Lawrence
These are notes of British Lieutenant Colonel T.E. Lawrence, otherwise known as "Lawrence of Arabia", who did what we would now call special operations work with the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula during World War I.
Make appropriate substitutions, like "subordinates" for "Arabs", "work" for "war", and "project" for "Arabia", and it applies pretty well to any creative activity.
It's a lesson I had to learn on software projects I led. People who are put in charge are often the ones who know the most about the field they're working in. When that's actually true, the natural tendency of the person in charge is to tell his subordinates how to do everything, and measure the results by how he would do the tasks. Doing that too much will not only stifle the creativity of those subordinates who are capable of it, but will make completion of those tasks take far longer than it should.
At some point, you have to decide that what's provided is good enough, and move on.
Of course, too little supervision can have disastrous effects as well.
In fact, these notes show how difficult a process this can be. Some workers require little supervision, others considerably more. You can see the result of that process as it worked out in Maj. Lawrence's case in the introduction:
The following notes have been expressed in commandment form for greater clarity and to save words. They are, however, only my personal conclusions, arrived at gradually while I worked in the Hejaz and now put on paper as stalking horses for beginners in the Arab armies. They are meant to apply only to Bedu; townspeople or Syrians require totally different treatment. They are of course not suitable to any other person's need, or applicable unchanged in any particular situation. Handling Hejaz Arabs is an art, not a science, with exceptions and no obvious rules. At the same time we have a great chance there; the Sherif trusts us, and has given us the position (towards his Government) which the Germans wanted to win in Turkey. If we are tactful, we can at once retain his goodwill and carry out our job, but to succeed we have got to put into it all the interest and skill we possess.
The 27 Articles of T.E. Lawrence
And yes, tact can be a good thing in many working relationships.
Leadership really is a skill. Despite numerous academic efforts and popular books on the subject, it seems to still work mostly by trial and error.
2 comments:
Did Lawrence ever say anything about making training relevant to the job, and making the job requirements relevant to the job? If so, I have a few people in higher management at my company who need a book for Christmas...
(The captcha is farticr. Now Blogger's making fart jokes...oy.)
There's this:
22. Do not try to trade on what you know of fighting. The Hejaz confounds ordinary tactics. Learn the Bedu principles of war as thoroughly and as quickly as you can, for till you know them your advice will be no good to the Sherif. Unnumbered generations of tribal raids have taught them more about some parts of the business than we will ever know.
Sort of applicable, if one transposes a few nouns. There's also this:
12. Cling tight to your sense of humour. You will need it every day. A dry irony is the most useful type, and repartee of a personal and not too broad character will double your influence with the chiefs. Reproof, if wrapped up in some smiling form, will carry further and last longer than the most violent speech.
Beyond that, I don't know if there's much that T.E. can offer.
Post a Comment