And So On
Commander Denniston: Have you ever won a war Turing? I have. Do you know how it's done? Order. Discipline. Chain of Command. You are a very small cog in a very large system. And you will do as your commanding officer instructs.
Alan Turing: Who is your commanding officer?
Commander Denniston: Winston Churchill. Number 10 Downing Street. London SW1. If you have a problem with my decision you can take it up with him.
When we agree to work for someone, we accept we serve their Widget. They in turn serve their boss’s Widget. And so on. That’s why our boss gets to direct us how to make our Widget because it’s a component of their Widget… and so on.
This logic is not the reality of most workplaces.
For starters, often only the Winston Churchill level boss can describe their Widget.
Assuming they can, they need an entirely different set of skills to recognise when they may need to delegate making a component Widget to someone else.
Assuming they do, they need another set of skills to accurately describe that component Widget in a job description or recruitment ad.
Assuming they can, they need another set of skills to select a recruiter or employ a Human Resources person to run the recruitment process.
Assuming they do, they then rely on the recruiter or HR person to be good enough at their Widget to recruit the best person for the Boss’s Widget.
Assuming they are, the Widget Boss needs the talent, time, and motivation to induct, mentor, correct, affirm, listen to, learn from, respond to - aka ‘manage’ the person.
And so on.
The odds are against the Widget Boss recruiting even one person who can make the component Widget to make the Boss’s Widget to the Boss’s standards.
It’s a miracle any organisation of more than two people functions.
Organisations mostly don’t. Look at the evidence. Only 13% of workers are engaged at work and 19% of bosses.
Which is why nobody talks about Widget thinking.
Because failure can only be measured when we know what it is we are trying to achieve. The moment we talk Widgets - we define our failures.
And in our failures - is our humanity.
Yet we recoil and reject the Widget and cog analogy because they’re cold and impersonal and dehumanising. Preferring the nothingness of Opinion. The Widget of Everyone.
And we disengage. Which means our fellow humans disengage.
And so on.