Hamilton's 3 Rules of Management
In 2008, Lin Manuel Miranda was lounging in Mexico engrossed in Ron Chernow's biography, "Alexander Hamilton." Miranda was learning about the life of one of America's Founding Fathers. With each page turn, I imagine the inspiration for his next Broadway hit was mounting, getting ready to spill.
Alexander Hamilton was a phenomenal leader and statesmen. He is responsible for a decisive victory at the Battle of Yorktown and defending our Constitution with the Federalist Papers. The Musical hits upon these points but of course misses other key initiatives of Hamilton's life for the sake of time.
I did some research on Hamilton's writings and I found that he would have been quite the CEO if he were alive today. I wanted to share some of my favorites and add some commentary.
“Caution and investigation are a necessary armor against error and imposition.”
I would imagine that Hamilton is speaking here about the Checks and Balance system we have in place today. As far as organization management, however, this is a phenomenal principle to keep in mind. How often do we go set up a new process or product and have to restart due to our error? How often do we hear in the news companies that make incorrect decisions based on moving too quickly through the analysis?
DM me if you want to laugh about how NASA lost a $125 million Mars Orbiter because engineers did not notice that one team was working in metric units and the other was working in English Units. They could have used some armor.
"In hinting these particulars it is not my aim to confine your attention to them only; It will give me pleasure to find that your observation has been as diffusive as the object is extensive."
Or in other words, encourage innovation across your organization. Google encourages its employees to work 20% of the time on side projects that they think can benefit Google. Without this time blocking for innovation, we might not have Gmail the way it stands today and other add ons like Google News and AdSense.
Encourage yourself and your team to think of many solutions to solve a problem or evaluate a process that you have been using for a long time. A great activity I remember using in College was to have your team list out all of the possible uses for a brick in 2 minutes.
“Hard words are very rarely useful. Real firmness is good for everything. Strut is good for nothing.”
The best teachers in the world are those that are able to take complex ideas and break them down simply, without losing the integrity of the concept, into bite sized chunks for anyone to understand. Stephen Hawking was a master at this.
When asked to explain the effect a black hole would have on an object as it approached the event horizon, Hawking explained it similar to a person riding a kayak approaching a waterfall. The pull the waterfall has on the Kayak is much greater at the front of the kayak rather than the back. Once you go over the waterfall there is no turning back, similar to the event horizon of a black hole.
I actually feel calmer when an expert is speaking to me in simple terms and get increasingly suspicious when they will not stop using industry jargon. Remember, with your organization you and your team are there to accomplish a task. The simpler and more directly everyone communicates, the better a job can get done.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article. My contact is [email protected]. Check out my website www.gatewaychamber.com to learn more about how I can help your company grow, save money, and get involved with your community.