Steven Smith asks in a recent posting a simple question that gets shocking answers. Albert is a very good and highly productive employee. He works three times as fast as the other employees and delivers with great quality. Albert has two rules though: he never works more than 20hrs a week (getting the 40hrs 100% compensation), and he doesn't want any one to bother him during work. Would you employ him?

For Steven this is a no brainer: of course! However, he asks around and finds out that most of his fellow managers think differently, and would not employ Albert. Head over to read the full story, because it really makes you think again about a seemingly simple question.

Food for thought I got from the article and the comments, listed in provocative on-liners:

• Managers cannot "lead" or "motivate" people when these employees are out of sight
• Managers are eager to allow an employee to work over time, but hesitate to let him leave earlier, even when the job has been done
• Managers are still not result oriented when dealing with employee performance. For them time isn't money (this is different from entrepreneurs)
• Companies are more focussed on appearances than on real results
• Employees don't mind being treated differently within a hierarchy, they hate peer-to-peer inequality however
• When employees should be available for reference, "available" mostly means being in sight.

I love looking at situations through different glasses to get several perceptions. I love reading and thinking about human behavior. And I adore authors that take on a multidisciplinary approach. So I must be ecstatic when all three are combined. I am.

In Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another Philip Ball explains to us what happens if you try to explain human behavior by using concepts and theories from physics. It is a treat. Ball writes clear and entertaining, and the ideas behind such a "physics of society" make your head spin. Not necessarily because you are staring at the ultimate truth, but just because you have never looked at your own behavior like that.
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