Product Description: "Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand." —Putt's Law
Early Praise for Putt's Law and the Successful Technocrat:
"This is management writing the way it ought to be. Think Dilbert, but with a very big brain. Read it and weep. Or laugh, depending on your current job situation." —Spectral Lines, IEEE Spectrum, April 2006
"It's a classic. It reads at first like humor, but one eventually realizes that it's all true. The first edition changed my life. I loaned my copy to a subordinate at IBM, and he didn't return it to me until he was my boss." —Dave Thompson, PhD, IBM Fellow (retired), Member National Academy of Engineering, and IEEE Fellow
"Putt's humor ranges from sharp to whimsical and is always on target. Readers will be reminded of many personal experiences and of lessons in life they wish they had learned earlier in their careers." —Eric Herz, former IEEE executive director and general manager
"Anyone who thinks 'engineering management' is an oxymoron needs to read this terrific book — then they will know." —Norman R. Augustine, author of Augustine's Laws and retired Chairman & CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation
Putt's Law is as true today as it was when techno-everyman Archibald Putt first stated it. Now, in Putt's Law and the Successful Technocrat: How to Win in the Information Age, Putt is back with the unvarnished truth about success in the modern, technology-driven organization.
As you learn the real rules of the technology world, you'll meet such characters as the successful technocrat, Dr. I. M. Sharp. You'll find out how he wrangles career victories from corporate failures, nearly bankrupting the firm with his projects while somehow emerging the hero. You'll also meet such unfortunates as Roger Proofsworthy, top-level perfectionist yet low in the hierarchy, and come to understand how he assiduously preserves his spot near the bottom of the totem pole.
Whether you work in business, IT, or are a freelance technocrat, you'll want to study Putt's hard-won wisdom and laugh—all the way to the bank!
Office based guerrilla training This book should be sold alongside DVD's of "Office Space". It truly explains why being an engineer or technical expert is hell. It shows how to avoid the trap of being pushed into management or alternatively how to finagle your way up the ladder.
Highly entertaining. It's Dilbert in prose.
Good Book! I bought this for my husband, he thinks it is a great book. I even read soem ofit and found it hard to put down.
Some excellent insights... Not really what is was hyped to be, but VERY informative from my perspective being a technologist.
Putt's Law and the Successful Technocrat Putt's Law and the Successful Technocrat
Archibald Putt has updated and expanded his earlier masterpiece to the delight of those who had the pleasure of reading it, as well as those who are reading Putt for the first time. His unerring eye for the absurd plus his quick wit have produced a book of unusual insight into the process of advancing in the high-tech industry.
Believers in the canard that pursuit of an advanced degree in science and technology is only for those of brilliant, but pedagogical bent should step into Dr. Putt's world where nothing is as it seems. Up is down, down is up, and failure to perform may be the best route to success.
Aspire to a corner office in the Executive Suite? Although this volume may be read as a light take on the Looking Glass-like inner workings of the corporate technology scene, it is also a serious outline of how to advance through the mine fields of technological failures. Or were they really failures, and if so, for whom? Readers who follow Putt's advice, and learn from his wonderfully humorous examples, will soon know the answers.
As much as I have enjoyed this book, I doubt that it will be made into a musical, such as How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. But perhaps I underestimate Putt's breadth of talent. Everything in the book suggests that we have not yet seen the complete Putt.
John Meyer
Putt returns with updated wisdom for the age of the web Putt's laws and their corollaries were published in a series of articles in Research/Development magazine in 1976-1977, and then published in a book in 1981. The work was credited to the pseudonym of Archibald Putt. In this new edition, Putt updates his advice for the age of the web and even adds a few laws given the new technology. Putt's fundamental law is :"Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand."
This was not just some cute clever saying that the author concocted. It can actually be logically derived. The author states that the only way to avoid the Peter Principle, which states that in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence, is creative incompetence. The author says technology is an anomaly because creative incompetence is common. Among the examples given are Albert Einstein. Einstein was one of those odd individuals who was so unkempt and eccentric that he would never be invited into the management club. Thus he was able to spend his entire career doing theoretical physics - never managing what he understood. The second anomaly is the lack of a competence criterion for technical managers, causing people to manage what they don't understand. These two anomalies together form a "competence inversion", hence Putt's law.
Subsequent articles develop a series of corollaries, all of them witty yet tragically true. Some others are: "The maximum rate of promotion is achieved at a level of crisis only slightly less that that which will result in dismissal." "The value of an idea is measured less by its content than by the structure of the heirarchy in which it is pronounced." "The correct advice to give is the advice that is desired. The desired advice is revealed by the structure of the hierarchy, not by the structure of the technology." "A successful consultant never gives as much information to his clients as he gets in return." "Decisions are justified by benefits to the organization: decisions are made by considering benefits to the decision-makers." "Organizational stagnation occurs when the punishment for success is as large as for failure." Putt also includes some cogent advice such as Putt's Ploy: "If you must fail, fail big." For example, a scientist in a commercial lab who was supposed to be developing nonfading dyes instead discovers an insect repellant. The question is - is this success or failure? If it was failure then the scientist "failed big".
However, this is not a dry book full of disjoint corollaries and proofs. Instead, Putt illustrates how his laws can be applied to your advantage through two opposing models: Dr. I.M. Sharp and Roger Proofsworthy. Dr. I.M. Sharp is a man of limited technical ability who transforms his corporate failures into personal successes. When his unworkable blue-sky project nearly bankrupts his company, he deftly applies techniques described by Putt and emerges victorious. In contrast is Roger Proofsworthy, who handles all assignments so perfectly and with such ease that he requires neither help nor guidance from management. This "successful invisibility" causes him to toil for years at the lowest level, as taken for granted as a door knob.
In summary, if your job is in technology you must read this book. Putt really won't tell you many things that you didn't know deep down already, but he puts it in such a way that you'll always remember it and be able to put the principles to work in your own career. I highly recommend it.
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