Why I think Thinking Weeks are stupid
Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 3:01 About.com has an article up about how Bill Gates of Microsoft collects the papers from his employees, reads and thinks on them and answers to their respectful authors (or the whole company, I guess, if the idea is particularly good) during his Thinking Week twice a year. Not even family friends allowed to interrupt the Master. I think it's bullshit!
First of all, twice a year? Are you kidding me?! Why not once a decade? After all, thinking is pretty darn difficult and one needs time to recuperate! Second of all, it doesn't matter how smart a person might be, one should be pretty ignorant and self-absorbed to think that he could go through some 100 papers a week, stay focused during the process, recognize opportunities and produce conscious business decisions on his own!
The article then continues with Ten Commandments or as they call it -- "Ten Thinking and Dreaming Exercises for Creativity and Innovation". Some of them make sense -- read a lot of non-fiction, write down your thoughts, take time to reflect. And some of them are pretty laughable -- create "idea files" in most folders in your computer.
What I would do differently? Immitating Microsoft's own Steve Ballmer -- conversations, conversations, conversations! Create online forums, IM and/or IRC chat-rooms, mailling lists, wikis, blogs, podcasts and whatnot for employees to communicate their ideas and discuss them amongst themselves. Encourage people to hang out in those media to chat and reflect publicly -- they are going to read blogs and exchange messages on company's time anyway, so why not let them give something back in return? And finally, listen and participate in those discussions and delegate big chunks of decision making to your employees, who are in many cases smarter and more experienced than you are and are much closer to your customers.
Reader Comments (2)
The problem with conversations, especially if there are more than two or three people involved in keeping them going, is that they tend to become their own raison d'etre and end up absorbing infinite amounts of the time we put into them....
Conversation, especially in a large team, is a lot like breathing—it has to be coordinated and it has to be going on all the time. When your body is under stress, breathing takes more time and energy, but it's barely noticeable when you're relaxed.
That's not to say I don't agree with you, Michael. But if you cannot finish the race, it is silly to blame heavy panting. It is just an indication of either a poor health or a mismanagement.