The no excuses culture
This was a good post and an interesting idea with some nice conclusions.<p>One of the commenters, however, nailed it and got to the heart of the difficulty: <i>getting people to do what they say they will do</i>. Period. Full stop.<p>You can wrap excuses, or culture, or other corporate vocabulary around the matter, but it boils down to that fundamental thing of people doing what they are asked and delivering what they say they will.<p>Managing people is difficult and if there's an organization who has had more experience organizing people to execute objectives than most anyone else, it's the military. They are damned good at it and there exists a lot of manuals and writings to this end.<p>The commentor brought up an essay from 1899 that is still brought up in today's military training. It is clearer and more to the point of the fundamental need of <i>people who can do what you ask and deliver what they say</i>.<p>It's only three pages and it's wonderful. A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard:<p><a href="http://www.benning.army.mil/infantry/199th/ocs/content/pdf/message%20to%20garcia.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.benning.army.mil/infantry/199th/ocs/content/pdf/m...</a><p>There's an extraordinary amount of laziness and entitlement in today's businesses; technology is no exception. It is truly rarer and rarer to find someone who will simply: "carry a message to Garcia."