If you've been paying attention, you know that Scott Adams is currently my favorite cartoonist. He comes up with insightful and funny gags more often than any other cartoonist I see regularly. Judging from the reactions of colleagues and students at school, Adams speaks about more than the corporate world he inhabited. That testifies to his perceptiveness about organizations and human nature.
Adams has made no secret of wanting to make LOTS of money with his creations so it's no surprise that collections of Dilbert cartoons are published regularly or that Dilbert dolls and t-shirts are in stores everywhere. It might be a surprise to find out that Adams has begun speaking to business groups about how to make business organizations work. It's no secret that his book on the topic, The Dilbert Principle, was on best seller lists last spring and summer.
Jim gave me the book for Fathers Day. It's funny. I found myself chuckling frequently as I read it. It's not just that many cartoons are reprinted. Adams' commentary is full of good lines. And he reprints a flock of e-mail messages he's received to illustrate his main ideas. All that said, I have to add that Adams is a better cartoonist than writer. There's nothing wrong with his critical thinking process though. I can imagine that the first line of his talk to some all-company meeting:
"You know, paying my fee for the this speech was not the smartest thing that was every done." Whereupon he'd wave the check in front of the captive audience and add, "Thanks for proving me right again." (Reading Adams' book convinced me that Dogbert and Ratbert represent Adams even more than Dilbert does.)
Adams' claim to validation (getting paid to speak at a company meeting) rests on two of his serious ideas:
Having a cartoonist and business observer--not practitioner--speak to a large number of employees (few of whom will be able to act on his ideas) is one of those dumb things at least "one level removed" from products or customers.
Adams' insight about successful companies (or schools) is, as he says, a restatement of the super obvious: "Companies with effective employees and good products usually do well." With those two characteristics, managers will avoid involving people in activities that are "one level removed" as much as possible. "These 'one-off' activities are irresistible. You can make a convincing argument for all of them [but] a company with a good product rarely needs a mission statement."
Adams' rules for successful organizations:
In spite of being idiots, some of us have occasional great ideas. (Einstein had some about physics, but few about hairstyles.) And that idiot Adams has some in this book. I like to imagine a school where teachers are actively discouraged from "one off" activities (i.e. attending professional growth committee meetings, writing vision statements for courses, begging for new textbooks, dreaming up new ways to regulate students' out-of-class behavior), where there are quiet places to get work done without having to take it home, where memos and meetings are short, where no one needs a map to decipher responsibilities, and where no one has to beg a dozen people (with a different rationalization for each) in order to attend an academic conference.
But that just shows what an idiot I am.
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