SlogansNotEngagement

I think this counts an organizational anti-pattern, that poisons the adoption of good ideas. Applies to both process slogans and technology slogans. Seems to be independent of where the idea lands on the personal / whole culture continuum, or the command & control / engagement and alignment continuum. Seems to accrue at a grand strategy level, often associated with LessonsFromBooksAboutCeos, and at a grass roots level.

One antidote is Orwell's Politics and the English Language mentioned elsewhere and still my favorite software engineering text.

--- JimBullock, 2003.07.17

One of Deming's "14 points" was the slogan "No slogans". I think he was also against evaluating employees on "individual accomplishments" before WW II, since the system (of manufacturing, etc.) had more to do with accomplishments than the individual's talents, and because it goes against teamwork.

KeithRay 2003.07.20

Deming was on to a whole lot of good things . . . and a lot of his stuff got hijacked. I don't have a solution to the balance between getting ideas out there and avoiding getting hijacked. I do know that paying attention to either concern exclusively seems to work out badly.

-- JimBullock, 2003.07.20

Ideas don't diminish by getting stolen. Getting sloganized can diminish them some, but they're getting more airing. Why sweat the hijacking? Who dies with the most ideas protected wins???

-- BobLee 2003.07.20

I'm not sure what Jim meant, but when I speak of hijacking ideas, I mean taking them and turning them to another purpose, often opposite of the original intent, or just in some other self-serving direction. I'm always pleased when people steal my ideas, because they weren't my ideas in the first place. But I'm not happy to have one hijacked. - JerryWeinberg 2003.07.20

What he said.

I'll go further. Ideas getting sloganized is one step in the technology buzz-word life-cycle which ends up creating a lot of noise, and deprecating the original good idea. The "waterfall" originators didn't say what a lot of the "big bad waterfall" folks claim. A lot of "waterfall" self-identified practitioners and "advocates" said, and did a lot of silly, ineffective stuff.

-- JimBullock 2003.07.21

Updated: Monday, July 21, 2003