The Leading Sapiens Weekly

Hey! It’s Sheril from Leading Sapiens. Welcome to my newsletter, where I share strategies for getting savvier at the game of work.

In this edition, I share a hilarious passage that captures an unfortunate reality of both how we work and live. It’s followed by my own observations on peak performance, and an entire collection of pieces covering different aspects of the same phenomenon.

Frederick Taylor’s notions of performance and managing people evolved on the factory floor more than 100 years ago. Unfortunately, even today, managers work with the same logic. We extend this same “machine logic” into our personal lives as well.

Consider the farcical account below of an analysis by a recent MBA grad wanting to optimize a symphony orchestra. The unfortunate reality is that this is not in fact a farce and happens every day at work.

A young, enthusiastic MBA was finally given the opportunity to apply his learning. He was asked to carry out a survey of a group with which he was not normally familiar and submit recommendations as to how its efficiency could be increased. He selected as his target a symphony orchestra. Having read up on the tools of the trade, he attended his first concert and submitted the following analysis:

Leave a Comment