Makers and doers

I didn’t know what I was going to write about today. Having a bit of the writer’s block at the moment.

So instead of writing, I was reading through bookmarked stories on Medium. I found my idea in this post by Alan Cooper.

This line triggered a special meaning to me:

But some of the most important and useful notions about how to actually run a twenty-first century company have come not from the experts but from the trenches.

I’ve written a fair amount about management before. The fact I have never managed influences my interests and perspectives.

I have long sought the voice of non-managers because they have great ideas too. I have, especially, fought for my own.

Some of my best work has come from my own initiative, and hard work, and not handed to me from above.

I have also seen some of my better ideas taken away from me and into different, less than ideal, directions.

It is the makers and doers who actually bring meaningful change. This is the role I have spent the entirety of my career performing.

As Cooper states in his posting, managers are still needed as much as ever, but we need them for something else.

We still need managers, probably more than we ever have, but we need them to act in a service role rather than in an authority role.

We’ve always needed the makers and the doers to get the actual work done. Before, the manager needed to tell them what widget to make and the keep the widget line moving at speed.

Today, the realization is that the makers and the doers have the right ideas on what widgets we should be making.