Hardworking Idiots
The hardworking idiots can destroy any company. They value their career most and they do everything possible to reach the goal. They usually do not understand the goal, but they generate a lot of unimportant tasks and documents to show their importance. The leader has to have a good sense to recognize the hardworking idiots in the organization as they can completely destroy it.
The hardworking idiots are well defined by the German Erich von Manstein who introduced four kinds of his officers. It is not that important, what four major groups, but he was definitely right with the group of hardworking idiots.
The leader has to be sensitive and the leader has to identify all the hardworking idiots around him or her. The hardworking idiots look like the best followers of the leader’s vision, but they do not manage its implementation, they produce a lot of pointless tasks for the rest of the group to demonstrate their buy-in.
The leader has to observe the whole group of the employees as the managers love the hardworking idiots as they look as the top performers in the whole organization. The rest of employees do not share the same opinion with the managers. They see the reality and they see no connection with the vision of the leader. The hardworking idiots can destroy the organization as the other employees have to fulfill their wishes, which are not connected with the vision and the strategy. They are produced and given to demonstrate the willingness to success.
The leader has to properly evaluate the effort and the real results against the vision and the strategy. When there is a mismatch, the leader has to focus on details and he has to ask clever questions to identify the real problem – the hardworking idiot in the team.
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- HR for Idiots
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- Leadership Development
- Missing Leaders
- HR Strategy and motivated team
