Comments on: A Different Way of Working

By: Caroline

Caroline — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:27:50 +0000

This is a fun example, and reminds me of my own volunteering gigs. Routine tasks work well for the drone model (or Queen-Bee model as you call it). Innovation and ownership are killed in this model, but in the gym example you are simply replicating what has been the proven successful model for decades. Plus, innovation in certain settings is unadvisable and plainly dangerous (I don’t want anyone “innovating” with gym equipment installation, thank you very much. Falling off the parallel bars is not appealing). When you want innovation, you have the Mozilla model where decentralization and open participation are a must. Also, group diversity (race, gender, backgrounds, education, opinion, etc) has been shown to be beneficial to innovation tasks, but is more detrimental to routine tasks. Maybe I won’t complain so much the next time I am taking orders from a Queen Bee when volunteering in my community, but will ask the question – is the QB model the best one for this task?

By: Lennie

Lennie — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:45:14 +0000

Sounds a bit like the surgeon-principle in the mythical man month. Where the surgeon also is the lead that makes everything come together.

By: inetpro

inetpro — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:47:05 +0000

hmm… interesting, just sad that drones never exhibit typical worker bee behaviors such as nectar and pollen gathering, nursing, or hive construction.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_(bee)#Behavior

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:34:15 +0000

Many Mensa people have jobs that seem to be much below their intellectual capacity, gives them more time to think about what they want to think.

By: mitchell

mitchell — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:07:21 +0000

Figuring out stuff in general probably. If our leader hadn’t known *exactly* what she wanted done and how and had the authority then it would have been exhausting!