Star pupils and corporate drones

The students who did well at my school:

• Sat quietly in class and didn’t answer back
• Always completed every homework assignment they were given
• Spent a long time on their homework
• Were always on time for class

These people are the corporate drones of today. Sure, you need a bunch of them in a business, but you also need people who:

• Ask 'why?' and hold those around them (in all directions on the org chart) to account
• Only work on tasks that they feel have value
• Spend the minimum amount of time on each task so they can move on to the next thing
• Work when they need to work, often in peaks and troughs

These are the people who change things and take a company forward.

Comments

[Matthew Hill]

Er, what? I did all those things at school. Do you think I'm a corporate drone?

[Tom Nixon]

It's not a tautological truth :)
The point I was trying to make is that I think the school system indoctrinates a certain type of behaviour which isn't always aligned to what's needed in business.

[Matthew Hill]

Yeah, I know that, but your post is comes across as dismissive of all people who did well at school as not being 'free thinkers'. Not everyone will read that how you intended it.

For the record I agree partly with what your saying though. In fact, schools teach very little that is aligned with REAL LIFE, let alone business!

[Amy Riley]

* Ask 'why?' and hold those around them (in all directions on the org chart) to account
* Only work on tasks that they feel have value
* Spend the minimum amount of time on each task so they can move on to the next thing
* Work when they need to work, often in peaks and troughs

Sounds like me at school! And it sounds exactly how I still am at work (cringe?)

I went to school in the US - I think the educational culture is very different to how it was & is here. Talking to friends in the UK, they were beaten into submission (eg not saying anything) for fear that they'd get picked on by classmates.

Point taken overall, though.

[Ash]

You definitely need those people who chew bits of paper and then spit them out of a Bic biro.

You can't be a creative and be a corporate drone. (when I say creative, I mean that in the loosest sense. I personally see code crunching techies as creatives, as well as mullet wearing designers with square glasses - But I'm digressing - Possibly because I didn't concentrate at school)
The two things just don't work out.... In advertising agencies you tend to get Account Managers, who are basically watch-tappers and drone-like, leading the work of pool playing, Hoxton loving, beers at lunchtime creative types. This is bloody madness in my opinion. Creative types are better at thinking (oh god I'm going to say it) "Outside the box" (what an idiot)... Account Handlers are just slaves to clients whims. The very people who gave the apple to the teacher at school. Handed in their work on time, and took in everything they were told, no matter how pointless or riduculous it was (Algebra.. Bloody stupid I always thought... How I regret not paying more attention in Maths now, being a bit of a code-cruncher)

But hey.. I'm a creative.. Where there is a will there is a way. Problems present themselves, and partly due to the fact that I basically blagged my way through education and got semi decent grades too, I have not met a problem in my work that I couldn't eventually solve.

Big girly swats just stick to the rules. More often than not this works brilliantly, but they are the sort of people that cost the Dept of Education 5.5 million pounds a year for websites that are never launched. Planned.. Relentlessly planned, superbly. But hopelessly complex to complete.