I have a pet peeve that I am never going to win against yet I do not think I can ever accept the status quo. The peeve is calling people resources. To me a resource is a thing and people are not things they are people. Even the term “Human Resources” bothers me because as I understand it comes in a direct descendence from Frederick Taylor and his thinking about people as essentially cogs in a machine. I do not see people as easily replaceable, each group of people has their synergies and changing even one can change the nature of the whole group.

I often run into the attitude that you can make a team out of any collection of people and while I agree in the most basic sense that you can, if you want the best teams you do have to craft them just as you would a winning sports team. Not all teams may be highly visible or work on the most important projects and may not attract the top talent however, you still should craft your teams, there is an art not just a science to doing it well and of making the most out of what you have available. People are not cogs, they are people and to treat them as anything less than that does a disservice to them and in some sense dehumanizes us all.