The Sharpie, The Spreadsheet, and The Truth About ‘Bad’ Teams
The Sharpie, The Spreadsheet, and The Truth About 'Bad' TeamsUnveiling the hidden wisdom in organizational workarounds, and why "defiance" is often profound, pragmatic self-preservation.The Acrid Promise of PermanenceThe smell of the Sharpie is what hits you first. It's that acrid, chemical promise of permanence. He's bent over a stack of printer paper, the harsh blue work-light of the backstage area carving deep shadows onto his face. With a metal ruler, he's meticulously striking through lines of text, making notes in the margins in a cramped, all-caps script. On a sleek monitor just to his left, the show-calling software sits open, its elegant user interface displaying the exact same information. The software cost the company $47,000.The paper and the Sharpie cost maybe 77 cents. Yet in the critical thirty minutes before…
























