Wisdom of Pirates

09/30/2010

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
Margaret Thatcher

Seventeenth century pirates, such as Captain Morgan and Captain Kidd, had it right, argues Hayagreeva Rao in Harvard Business Review (October, 2010). They didn't mix leadership and operational tasks. "A brilliant commander might have little patience for dealing with the minutiae of resource allocation. A skilled administrator might dread the thought of leading men in battle."

According to Rao, a common mistake of organizations today is the lumping together of two distinct areas of responsibility:

Star tasks — strategic work such as setting goals, providing leadership, and negotiating alliances.

Guardian tasks — allocating resources, administering personnel policies, and basically managing the day-to-day work of the company.

Going back to his pirate analogy, Rao observes... "they made the captain responsible for star tasks, and elected a quartermaster general to perform the guardian tasks."

Arrgh!

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