I've recently moved back into private sector, and it's been pretty surprising to me just how little of the business world has to do with actual business. There are the expected things, such as relationship building, empire building, fiefdom building, etc.
But, it also seems that a lot of the actual effort people expend doesn't have very much to do with the business. For example, we had an executive whose passion in life was clearly just to speak in front of people. He never did real work, but made sure to take every opportunity to ensure he was speaking in front of people. It's clear that he should have been a public speaker.
I don't mean to pick on this particular executive, but it seems like there's a lot of this here. A lot of people, engaged all day in things that don't produce work. They're more about building some special, separate social hierarchy: determining who is in charge, who has influence, who matters. That seems to take up a lot of time in the private sector. I'm sure it's not universally true, but this has been my ad-hoc experience.
And, I get it: this is what people do, and what people value. We're social creatures, etc. But it sort implies that everyone's engaged in a joint lie. That lie being "we're here to work and we're all hard workers. We're primarily interested in advanced the business." It seems like a more literal truth might be: "We're here to take part in a social hierarchy, and forge friends and enemies, and do enough actual work that no one minds how inefficient our business is."
Good point, and I used to actually hold a stronger belief in things like that because to me they represent a larger-picture type of work that seemed more interesting.
BUT, ever since I exited out of that game to start my own business, my beliefs have been shifting. Now I can see exactly how successful businesses come together and make enough money to fill payroll, and there's no getting around the fact that real, valuable work needs to get done. And that only once the real work has been done, do you then get to have the nice byproducts of success which is to do public speaking, culture building, and etc all those extra-curricular things. But the existence of these extra-curriculars are predicated on having a successful business in the first place. And no matter how cynical anyone gets, you won't have a successful business based on /JUST/ bullshit empire building alone- you gotta do real work and provide real value.
I can also see more clearly now that if society doesn't have the right balance between doers and talkers, we're eventually gonna have nothing valuable to show for anymore, and the fallout from that won't be pretty.
When /everyone/ DESIRES to be talkers, instead of just a small minority, it's a worrisome trend.
I think that's very fair, and to be clear: I'm not necessarily even suggesting this is a bad thing, just that I was surprised by it, and that it seems to run counter to what people publicly espouse. For certain, some businesses are more efficient than others as well.
My boss keeps repeating how he’s impressed with how much we achieve, but I keep thinking we could do so much more.
I feel it’s cultural though. I feel in Japan people are very much in a company to just have some sort of occupational therapy, but in the Netherlands people are very much together to do work.
But, it also seems that a lot of the actual effort people expend doesn't have very much to do with the business. For example, we had an executive whose passion in life was clearly just to speak in front of people. He never did real work, but made sure to take every opportunity to ensure he was speaking in front of people. It's clear that he should have been a public speaker.
I don't mean to pick on this particular executive, but it seems like there's a lot of this here. A lot of people, engaged all day in things that don't produce work. They're more about building some special, separate social hierarchy: determining who is in charge, who has influence, who matters. That seems to take up a lot of time in the private sector. I'm sure it's not universally true, but this has been my ad-hoc experience.
And, I get it: this is what people do, and what people value. We're social creatures, etc. But it sort implies that everyone's engaged in a joint lie. That lie being "we're here to work and we're all hard workers. We're primarily interested in advanced the business." It seems like a more literal truth might be: "We're here to take part in a social hierarchy, and forge friends and enemies, and do enough actual work that no one minds how inefficient our business is."