Zell and the art of employee management

It always irritates me when this happens: Frank Hayes beat me to the punch (a sadly common occurrence; for my money Frank is the best columnist in IT). Take the time to read his excellent column about the Tribune company and its new owner/CEO, Sam Zell: "Frankly Speaking: Sam Zell's 'crazy' idea plugs content filters," Computerworld, 1/28/2008.Zell plans to lead the Tribune based on the radical notion that he ha

It always irritates me when this happens: Frank Hayes beat me to the punch (a sadly common occurrence; for my money Frank is the best columnist in IT). Take the time to read his excellent column about the Tribune company and its new owner/CEO, Sam Zell: "Frankly Speaking: Sam Zell's 'crazy' idea plugs content filters," Computerworld, 1/28/2008.

Zell plans to lead the Tribune based on the radical notion that he has talented employees who are also, coincidentally, grown-ups. He's going to run the company based on that assumption. That means no more use of web filtering and monitoring, e-mail tracking and so on as ways to make sure employees aren't wasting time on the job.

It isn't that I haven't written about this subject ... for example, see "Employee privacy - buck the trend,"  Keep the Joint Running, 11/13/2000, not to mention a very old IS Survival Guide, "Sam Kinison on management," (4/15/1996).

Still, it's one thing for a columnist and self-appointed pundit to talk about this. It's quite another for the billionaire owner of a media conglomerate to build the future of his business around it.

As further evidence, here is how the Tribune's new Employee Handbook begins:

Rule #1: Use your best judgment.

Rule #2: See Rule 1.

That's it. That is the one hard and fast rule. Unless a serious mistake was made when you were hired, you have pretty good judgment.

You have to like a guy like that.

- Bob

Powered by ScribeFire.