Master, master, the tower is leaning!

Image courtesy of Pixabay / Pexels

A couple of years ago, in a review of a book about the history of the Danish manor Nørre Vosborg, I encountered an anecdote from the time when the nobleman Niels Bugge built Osborg, the predecessor of what was to become Nørre Vosborg. The castle was to be so big that Bugge had acquired a master builder from England, and when this master builder had done his job, received his pay and left Osborg, Bugge sent one of his knights after the builder, shouting, "Master, master! The tower is leaning!" If the builder turned to look back when hearing these words, the knight should interpret it as if the builder doubted the quality of his work - and therefore cut him down and take the money back. The master builder, however, did not turn to look back.
What makes me appreciate this anecdote so much is the unspoken understanding that exists between Bugge and the master builder. On one hand, the slightest indication that the builder has the slightest doubt about the quality of his work is incriminating enough to indicate that he has not earned his money - and, in addition, has to pay with his life for his implied fallibility. On the other hand, the builder refuses to acknowledge the mere possibility that his work would be flawed and thus makes Bugge even more satisfied than if the knight had returned with the money.
Now management is no longer done in the way that you lose your head if you doubt your work, and of course, if one's creations are questioned, one should meet the questions with understanding rather than being arrogantly confident.
But I think we would do ourselves a favour if we make sure that we - before we show ourselves accommodating and suggest to "let's look at it ..." - dare believe it when our inner voices firmly say, "The tower leans not ...!"
(Translated from Mester, mester, tårnet hælder!)

From the chess board - and beyond

I heard a good point the other day, picking up its concepts from the world of chess - a point that was so good that I have to repeat it here. In all its simplicity, it went approximately as follows:

It makes no sense to hire chess players and treat them as chess pieces.

- so to understand that when you hire excellent people (and of course you do not want to hire people if you do not think they are excellent - then you prefer yet another job interview with yet another candidate), you should give them space to be excellent, rather than start exposing them to micromanagement. As the developer of the programming language C ++, Bjarne Stroustrup, has written in a footnote in his book on the language:

 An organization that treats its programmers as morons will soon have programmers that are willing and able to act like morons only.

And there is no reason to believe this is true for programmers only.
 Micromanagement destroys the progress of a company, one can rightly say. But on the other hand, if you absolutely insist on telling your employees that you have no confidence in them, micromanagement is a really excellent way to do it.
(Translated from Fra skakbrættet - og andre steder)