Shanti’s Dispatches

I brought this topic up at work, but didn’t quite articulate the point the general was making exactly right. View the original article here.

The contrarian gist is that you want to hire as many clever, lazy people as possible, promoting them to leadership roles.

In fact, if the choice is between hard-working + clever, and lazy + clever, you actually want to find the lazy & clever types because, as Adrian Savage states, “laziness is the principal spur to creativity. Lazy people are always looking for easier, simpler, and less arduous ways to do things. If they are also clever, the chances are that they will find them, and make them available to everyone else. Lazy people are also natural delegators, and find it very attractive to let their subordinates get on with their work without interference from above.”

More from the article:

The German World War II general Erich von Manstein is said to have categorized his officers into four types.

The first type, he said, is lazy and stupid. His advice was to leave them alone because they don’t do any harm.

The second type is hard-working and clever. He said that they make great officers because they ensure everything runs smoothly.

The third group is composed of hardworking idiots. Von Manstein said that you must immediately get rid of these, as they force everyone around them to perform pointless tasks.

The fourth category are officers who are lazy and clever. These, he says, should be your generals.

I can see if you have an exact set of pre-determined tasks that you need to be done, then you simply want the hard-working person who will do exactly what is requested of them.

This reminds me, though, of stories where offshore developers are sent a set of specs, and perhaps they slightly misinterpret some of the things in the spec; what you end up with is something that kinda, sorta works but could be improved greatly. Sometimes it takes a little clever (or lazy) innovation on the part of the implementor to get things done as efficiently, and elegantly, as is possible.

You can bookmark this, digg this or check the cosmos