For example, Idealab designer Tom Hughes, who created the Macintosh logo, designs logos for each new Idealab Web site. By sharing Hughes and other resources, Idealab allows its Web businesses to develop at a much faster rate than if they were on their own. By studying how to deal with people issues such as this, Kellogg students would be able to develop their management skills much more quickly as well. As Fast Company founding editor Bill Taylor noted in a recent talk for Kellogg's Organizational Effectiveness Club, the Sony example shows it s no longer preferable for a company to have a huge staff. With a large staff, managers must worry about hiring, firing, promoting, mentoring and all the other responsibilities of managing a lot of employees.
Managers can get a lot more done as the leader of a small, flexible team.
Unfortunately, many people are promoted directly from technical positions to team leader without the slightest idea of how to manage a team. As a result, they may do everything themselves instead of delegating work, managing too much content and not enough process. They may struggle with leadership style, bouncing from being too authoritarian to too consensus-oriented. They may view the team as a single unit instead of a collection of individuals. Teaching Kellogg students these ideas up front could save them from a lot of pain later.