After Jim McGee said such a kind thing about my Law of [Non-]Simplification, I have to spread around some of my new organizational-theory whuffie, pointing it at Merlin Mann. You may think Mann has all the whuffie anyone could need, with countless tech hipsters eating out of his folders, but as I was drowning myself in an RSS subscription backlog, I spotted a gem of a comment from him.
In response to a story about Apple picking up the tab for a reservation he and some friends made, Merlin notes that “Things like this make me feel they’ve got elves all over making smart micro-decisions. . . .” That’s it — “smart microdecisions”; that expresses in two words what I have always aimed at in administrative functioning. When you make smart microdecisions as an administrator, experience suggests to me that other people start making smart microdecisions, too. The administrative ecosystem begins to work in your favor, good sense starts showing up at the roots, and the tree flourishes. Now I have a phrase for it — thanks, Merlin.