posted 07-19-1999 02:10 AM
It's a hard fact of Life that all nanocorp owner-employees are geniots, that is, a symbiotic fusion of genius and idiot. We are incredibly great at some things, dumb as posts at others. We obsess over some aspects of our business while turning a blind eye to things we don't like to do.
Not that nanocorpers are any more or less susceptible to this universal human condition than the general population. It's just that we are more susceptible to our geniot's potentially deleterious affects. This is due to another hard fact of nanocorp Life, The Law of Small Numbers.
Geniots in conventional business
The Law of Large Numbers works to advantage in most businesses. In even a relatively small business, there are different people to fill different jobs. Specialization allows workers to skew their responsibilities toward the things they are good at and the things they want to do. With organization growth, multiple people fill multiple instances of the same job.
All in all, the Geniot Affect is pushed into background noise in anything but the smallest businesses.
Geniots and the nanocorp
The Law of Small Numbers plays havoc with the ruthlessly small nanocorp. Our tiny diversified corporate conglomerate organization structures mean that each nanocorper is a generalist in the extreme, and in parallel. This is our 'Few Heads - Many Hats' nanocorp management dilemma.We don't have the luxury of specialization. We can't avoid doing things that we are not good at. And sometimes our work product suffers where our interest lags.
Leveraging our genius and buttressing our idiocies is the key to management success in the nanocorp.
How do you recognize and overcome your weaknesses? What techniques are useful for assuring that you spend time on the things that need doing, even when what needs doing are things that you don't like to do? More to the point, How do you use your geniotness to advantage?