Heroism is not a culture problem. Heroism is always a good thing. But process weenies like to knock it because it makes them seem grown up and sober.
The point the author wants to make can be made without denigrating the glorious matter of a person who is willing to overcome adversity to and ambiguity and chaos to do something wonderful.
When process mavens attack heroism, they are essentially saying that high performance and creative solutions should be an algorithm, a mechanism, something inhuman rather than fully human. They want the business to be an equation, and that should offend us, not comfort us.
By all means let’s do something to make innovation reasonably acceptable and not unreasonably expensive— but no organization should lightly enter into highly speculative work. Heroism is heroic partly because it’s also dangerous. There are good reasons to discourage it and good reasons to engage in it. Heroism is fraught— but it’s essential to any kind of technical work, since we are surrounded by obscure, “wicked” problems.
A good organization will reward heroism that doesn’t have a happy ending, as long as it was responsibly and competently pursued.
The point the author wants to make can be made without denigrating the glorious matter of a person who is willing to overcome adversity to and ambiguity and chaos to do something wonderful.
When process mavens attack heroism, they are essentially saying that high performance and creative solutions should be an algorithm, a mechanism, something inhuman rather than fully human. They want the business to be an equation, and that should offend us, not comfort us.
By all means let’s do something to make innovation reasonably acceptable and not unreasonably expensive— but no organization should lightly enter into highly speculative work. Heroism is heroic partly because it’s also dangerous. There are good reasons to discourage it and good reasons to engage in it. Heroism is fraught— but it’s essential to any kind of technical work, since we are surrounded by obscure, “wicked” problems.
A good organization will reward heroism that doesn’t have a happy ending, as long as it was responsibly and competently pursued.