I found an intriguing article from The Tech Zone via Business Innovation Insider.

I will just quote from the article:

IT people (e.g. analysts and programmers) exhibit a lot of blue collar characteristics, e.g., repetition in types of work performed, they do not dress or act like professionals, and regularly punch in and out of work with little interest in going above and beyond the call of duty. [...] Blue collar workers can perform technical tasks as well as manual tasks, such as those found in manufacturing and assembly; and although they are classified as exempt workers paid a salary, they tend to behave like hourly workers instead. Further, there are plenty of blue collar workers who were just as educated, if not more so, than a lot of the programmers and analysts on their staffs. One executive even went so far as to tell me about a couple of craftsman machinists he had with MBA degrees…

What do you think? How do you feel?

For any manger solving problems is an everyday job. One can apply various methodologies. I propose you a simple approach guaranteed to solve all problems:

Ok. Enough joking. Take a look at this post by Carmine Coyote on the Slow Leadership blog:

If the sh*t was a random event, your job as boss is to reassure, comfort, and display undiminished trust and loyalty. Doing anything else proves the asshole bit.

The attitude under stress will show the real character of people. If you can stand up, take your part of the blame then you are a man of character.

If you can protect your people, if you can take the blame of the organization for them then you will earn the loyalty of your people.

What is you problem solving methodology? Leave a comment to tell us.

I found a little gem on “Project, Process & Business Improvement” blog:

Lesson One
An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing.
A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, “Can I also sit like you and do nothing?”
The eagle answered: “Sure, why not.” So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested.
All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Management Lesson #1
- To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

Read the full article here.

There are three types of computer science students: the zombie, the academician and the hacker.

The zombie

He feels early the need for more real life action and go out in the wild for a job. Usually they get a job as junior programmers and starts spiting out forms in VB (or Java or .NET or whatever). With little fundamentals they transform soon into zombie programmers. In the extreme version, the zombie knows nothing about algorithms, about system analysis, about how to learn. They may become stuck with a specific technology or programming language.

Eventually they end up as master programmers writing programs like this one (see the master programmer section).

The academician

He takes great pride on their theoretical knowledge. The academician loves to build cathedrals: huge applications, with mountains of specifications and documentation. Unfortunately, a hundred years later when the cathedral is finished, the city is no longer there. Remember La Sagrada Familia? The cathedral construction started in 1880 in an empty field over a mile away from urban Barcelona. Today it’s not finished and stand in the centre of modern Barcelona.
The same thing happens with huge applications: they are never truly finished, and moreover the business changes condemn them to irrelevance.

The hacker

He never really understands “Waterfall” methodologies. He learns and program using “Extreme” methods. He hates cathedrals and love bazaars. He takes college as an opportunity to learn many new things. If teachers do not provide the hacker learns on its own.

He knows the world is changing every day. First thing he learn is how to learn. He is natural born lazy: always looking for simpler ways to accomplish results (see “Guru Hacker” here). If you have the guts, always hire hackers. They will come with solutions, with prototypes, with code reusability.

Our education system does not provide enough real life connections for those in danger of becoming zombies.

Our education system does not provide enough “extreme” learning for academicians and they become cathedral builders.

Our education system does not provide enough challenges for aspiring hackers and they may fail their career by becoming zombies.

PS: What am I? Just an executive…

PPS: This was inspired by excelent post of Kathy Sierra about education on Creating Passionate Users:

The Waterfall Model of education is failing like never before. We need Agile Learning.

The master Tom Peters posts a wonderful article on his blog.

The reality is messy, non-linear and defies most attempts to cram it into a detailed plan. The world today rewards the doers, the ones doing things.

The long-term planners missed each and every one of recent opportunities: from electricity to Web 2.0.

The competition is no longer a parlor dance but a guerilla war. And Marshall Petain said:

Nothing is more dangerous in war than theoreticians.

It’s all about “Think vs. Do”.

PS: Be sure to read also the excellent presentation accompanying the article.