Leeson is fascinated by pirates because they flourished outside the state—and, therefore, outside the law. They could not count on higher authorities to insure that people would live up to promises or obey rules. Unlike the Mafia, pirates were not bound by ethnic or family ties; crews were as remarkably diverse as in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films. Nor were they held together primarily by violence; while pirates did conscript some crew members, many volunteered. More strikingly, pirate ships were governed by what amounted to simple constitutions that, in greater or lesser detail, laid out the rights and duties of crewmen, rules for the handling of disputes, and incentive and insurance payments to insure that crewmen would act bravely in battle.

Gold Star

The Pirates’ Code: Online Only: The New Yorker

] Management as the word is presently used is an American
] invention. In other parts of the world not only the
] practices but the entire concept of management may
] differ, and the theories needed to understand it, may
] deviate considerably from what is considered normal and
] desirable in the USA. The reader is invited on a trip
] around the world, and both local management practices and
] theories are explained from the different contexts and
] histories of the places visited: Germany. Japan, France,
] Holland, the countries of the overseas Chinese, SouthEast
] Asia. Africa, Russia, and finally mainland China.

Management as the word is presently used is an American invention

] NASA engineers, using personal contacts, asked the US
] military and intelligence agencies to use their spy satellites
] to look at the shuttle's wing. There were three separate
] attempts to ask for spy photos and each time, NASA
] management found out about these requests and ordered the
] military NOT to look at the shuttle. Managers warned the
] engineers to follow procedures.
]
] If the NASA engineers had gotten the images, they would have
] seen the hole, the astronauts could have stayed in the space
] station, another shuttle (Atlantis) could be sent up, and the
] astronauts could return on the second shuttle.
]
] The CAIB report should be read by anyone who works in
] large organizations. It uncovers the blindness in organizational
] decision making, shows how this occurs, and how this can be
] remedied.

[IP] The Columbia space shuttle accident report

"The broader failing of McKinsey and its acolytes at Enron is their assumption that an organization's intelligence is simply a function of the intelligence of its employees. They believe in stars, because they don't believe in systems."

This is a really good article. It gave me a good deal of insite into alot of the experiences I had at iAsiaWorks. Its not light reading. Only if you are interested in thinking about how organizations work.

The problem with focusing on 'star performers.'