Purposive Drift

Busy, busy, busy

Yesterday I was having a phone conversation with my brother when he asked me if I had read John Naughton's article, which discussed, among other things, how Carly Fiorina had taken "an innovative and much-admired technology company and eviscerated it with a kindergarten-MBA strategy that alienated thousands of the most dedicated staff in the technology business - not to mention leading many more to take early retirement or pursue exciting new careers in the fast-food industry."

I had and was reminded of a quote by William Hewlett I had fallen on with delight many years ago. So I told him what I could remember of the quote, which was something to the effect that when they started the company they didn't have any plans and just did what came along. And we both had a good chuckle.

I also told him that somewhere on one of the hard discs of one of my obsolete computers, I've got that quote, but getting to it would be really hard and how I have searched the web for it on a number of occasions and always come up with a blank.

So imagine my surprise when this morning I picked up a copy of "Digital Aboriginal" by Mikela Tarlow and found a quote by William Hewlett that read:

"... the Professor of Management is devastated when I say that we really didn't have any plans when we started - we were just opportunistic. We did anything that would bring in a nickel. We had a bowling foul-line indicator, a clock drive for a telescope, a thing to make a urinal flush automatically and an electric shock machine to make people lose weight. Here we were with about $500 in capital, trying to make whatever someone thought we might be able to do."

What made this find even more surprising is that I had almost given up on "Digital Aboriginal". I had borrowed it from my College library because flicking through it I had found some ideas very similar to my thinking on Purposive Drift. It also has other some insights I had never thought of. But, the gems all seemed to buried in that somewhat breathless American business book style, which seems to shriek 'every things changed and youve got to catch up'. And, unusually for me, that style so irritated me that I was about to return it unfinished.

Quite what made me pick it up this morning I don't know, but it was very strange finding that quote on the bottom of the second page I looked at. And perhaps equally strange, a few pages later, finding this from Mikela Tarlow, "Paying attention is not a glamorous leadership skill. We tend to focus on the more flashy traits like courage, boldness, risk, vision and charisma. Just looking around rarely makes it to the top-ten list of how to get ahead. Few spend time nurturing their talent to really observe, although it may be the most important tool we have."

All of which leaves me to say just like a Bokonist:

"Busy, busy, busy"

Which, in turn, gives me an excuse to link to two earlier post "Attention and Identity" and "Echos of Purposive Drift".

Read them and you might see what I mean.