Morning Advantage: The Boss Is Dead, Long Live the Boss

Knowledge@Wharton casts a questioning eye at the hype surrounding bossless offices. On the one hand, says Wharton professor Adam Cobb, hierarchy-free environments are "a very democratic way of thinking about work...Everyone takes part in the decisions." More so, "the people doing the actual work probably have a better sense of how to get it done than their bosses do." On the other hand, an office with no boss or manager overseeing the workflow can be disastrous. Cobb cites an academic paper that examined a small company whose owners let the employees take the reins. "Over time, the workers became more oppressed than when the bosses were there. Everyone became a monitor, constantly checking up on their fellow employees, even setting up a board to track what time people came into work and when they left." At a minimum, Cobb says, bosses do provide one valuable attribute: "They are a common enemy. Workers know the opposition. When employees become self-managed, it's hard to tell if you are all working together, or if everyone is working against you."

HINT: IT'S NOT THE JAMBALAYA PASTA

How the Cheesecake Factory Will Rescue Health Care (New Yorker)

"Our costs are soaring, the service is typically mediocre, and the quality is unreliable." This is how physician Atul Gawande describes his profession in a lengthy New Yorker essay. "Every clinician has his or her own way of doing things, and the rates of failure and complication (not to mention the costs) for a given service routinely vary by a factor of two or three, even within the same hospital." What's the answer to making health care delivery more reliable? Mimic the Cheesecake Factory, which has managed to find that delicate balance between consistent routine and just enough customization. This one is worth your time to read in full.

I'M AN AIR-CONDITIONED GENERAL MANAGER

Managing the New Mobile Workplace (Fortune)

Wireless printing, mobile-friendly projectors, even Apple-genius-bar like configurations in which employees can try out new gadgets and troubleshoot problems with IT experts are invading the office and reshaping the enterprise technology experience in the face of the mobile-device revolution. Companies including Spanish bank BBVA have even hired "chief mobility officers" to manage the explosion of devices workers are using and to oversee client-facing mobile services like app development.

BONUS BITS:

Sanitation and Meditation

How to Clean the Banking Cesspit (Reuters) Train Your Mind, Improve Your Game: Meditation for the 21st-Century Leader (Poets & Quants) A Business Tour of London (Business Strategy Review)