Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends is one of the best resource sites for small business ( in fact, it won a BusinessWeek award for it).

In her recent posts, she talked about managing a small business like a military unit. I have my thoughts on that. The nice and not so nice thing about our situation is that we now have an information explosion. Everywhere you go, there are almost limitless resources you can tap. So people go around and start to feel like they are the ‘experts’.

People who dont’ know an iota about photography buys a great camera , and instantly feel he is as good as the pro ( when all he does know is how to click the shutter). People who chances upon a hacked site, and download free programs suddenly thinks he is a computer programming expert. People who chanced upon some articles on the web about medicine suddenly feel that they understand the problem as well as their doctors, and wants to engage them in a debate.

This represents a challenge to management. The subordinates start to feel that they can handle this whole situation about managing their teams, or making the ‘right’ decisions. So even if you are instructions are do this and do that, they feel the creative freedom to ignore, and make their own calls.

I don’t mind being told I am wrong, and I certainly am not perfect, but it is a different matter when the person presents his case with you, and then accept a group decision, and another thing to just say yes, boss, I will do A, and then just go ahead in your back to do B and C instead.

I am encouraged to remember that adage which says, ” People who think they know everything are very irritating to those of us who do. ” I don’t mind if you want to lock horns with somebody with years of experience, but please earn your stripes first. Learn how to obey sometimes, instead of just following yourself. Yes, there is freedom, but in certain aspects, the military adage that you do what you are ordered to do sounds really enticing in many situations.