A short time ago, I had an experience that, again, showed me why I so dislike the terms “manager and managing”. Nor does it matter if they are combined with 2.0, 3.0 or 5.0. In fact, one of the reasons that made me me hesitant about ever using the term was that there are so many translations for “to manage” from English to German. Basically, you might well use it for “all and nothing”.
During the WebWeek, I attended an event by Techdivision in Munich that had been organized by my friend Sacha Storz (Sacha is not a typo ). The topic was 3.0 – as we all know, there is a lot of well-known, even famous, literature on the matter.
When we discussed it, Gerrit Mauch – whose contributions I very much appreciated – told us what the term “to manage” means to him. He said he thought that the original meaning of the word probably lies in the Latin: “manus agere” (’take by the hand’). It was mostly used when horses were trained.
That would mean that, as time went by, horse schools turned into “managing”.
Following this train of thought, you have to conclude that it was the ancient Roman’s BGM to care for the physical health of their horses. After all, they were important and ever so precious production animals.
And seeing humans under this light is simply the wrong concept in my eyes. Some way or other, it does not fit in our times at all. At least the developed societies should not be based on this kind of concept of humanity. And we all want to be a developed society, don’t we …
RMD
(Translated by EG)
P.S.
For more articles of my entrepreneur’s diary, click here: Drehscheibe!
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