Just to chime in with support, I read “The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It”. It is not obviously epistemically sound because it is offered more like “lore” than “science”. However it stayed with me, and seems to have changed how I approach organizational development, and I think I endorse the changed perspective.
One of the major concept handles that may have been coined in the book (or borrowed into the book thereby spreading it mnuch further and faster?) is the distinction between “working in your business versus working on your business”. A lot of people seem to only “work in”, not “work on”, and book makes the claim that this lack of going meta on the business often leads to burnout and business failure.
One thing to keep in mind is that since all debates are bravery debates and this specific community is often great at meta, it is also possible to make the opposite error… you can spend too much time working “on” an organization, and not enough “in” the organization, and the failures there look different. One of my heuristics for noticing if there is “too much organizational meta” is if the bathrooms aren’t clean.
One of my heuristics for noticing if there is “too much organizational meta” is if the bathrooms aren’t clean.
Heh, that feels right to me. Although I’d phrase that not necessarily as “evidence there is too much meta” so much as “evidence there is not enough object level.” (which may or may not point to the former, depending on context)
Just to chime in with support, I read “The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It”. It is not obviously epistemically sound because it is offered more like “lore” than “science”. However it stayed with me, and seems to have changed how I approach organizational development, and I think I endorse the changed perspective.
One of the major concept handles that may have been coined in the book (or borrowed into the book thereby spreading it mnuch further and faster?) is the distinction between “working in your business versus working on your business”. A lot of people seem to only “work in”, not “work on”, and book makes the claim that this lack of going meta on the business often leads to burnout and business failure.
One thing to keep in mind is that since all debates are bravery debates and this specific community is often great at meta, it is also possible to make the opposite error… you can spend too much time working “on” an organization, and not enough “in” the organization, and the failures there look different. One of my heuristics for noticing if there is “too much organizational meta” is if the bathrooms aren’t clean.
Heh, that feels right to me. Although I’d phrase that not necessarily as “evidence there is too much meta” so much as “evidence there is not enough object level.” (which may or may not point to the former, depending on context)