gods wear hats

Note: accidentally published this as a page instead of a post on my site. This is from December of last year.

I re-read Zapp again tonight. I’ve developed a love-hate relationship with that book over the years. I love the observations made in it, but I hate the mirror it holds up to my own faults as a manager.

If you’ve never read it, Zapp tells the story of supervisor Joe Mode and his employee Ralph Rosco, both of whom work for Normal Inc. making parts for normalators. Ralph invents a device which allows him and Joe to see into the 12th dimension, and thus able to see the feelings and energy in their department and the departments in the company.

Behind this somewhat cringeworthy fable are a bunch of lessons for empowering employees. Each time I read it, it is easy to see situations where I’ve Zapped (empowered) or Sapped (disempowered) a colleague or a team.

I gave away my last copy of that book in 2005. It’s nice to be in a situation where it’s beneficial again. I’ve come to the (maybe obvious) conclusion that it’s impossible to have a truly Agile organisation without empowerment. Maybe this is the real reason so many Agile projects fail.