Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Following Orders

Is it a problem that people don't know how to follow orders any more? Everything has to be discussed. I have met people who beleave it is, but I don't.

I think this human behavior is the main reason that we have evolved like we do and we all the time discover new things. I generally don't like to work with people that don't question what I say or do. Likewise I generally don't accept orders from my boss without a reason.

This doesn't mean that I can't do thing people tell me without asking question. If they have proven to ask reasonable things of me, I will do it right away.

Its all a matter of motivation. There is no such thing as a boring task. So far I haven't found a task in this business that I somehow couldn't turn interesting. If my project manager knows and understand my preferences he will be able to motivate me.

I once had a project manager who's standard motivation line would be: I know this a crappy task, but you just have to do it. That didn't motivate me and in the end I quit that job. He could instead have said: I have screwed up... you will really make my day if you can fix this for me.
To me project management is mostly about motivating project members to do the right thing. If they are motivated, following order will be easier, and productivity will be much higher.