"Everyone" Is Not A Valid Owner

Saw this over on {Codesqueeze}.  He talks about the danger of self-organizing teams.  When people aren't given clear responsibilities, things get dropped.  If there is a task which belongs to everyone it will in the end be accomplished by no one.  Everyone who sends e-mail knows this.  If you want an answer to your mail, never send it to two people at once.  Send two individual mails.  I liked this quote:

Managers with strong knowledge but are weak leaders tend to run hippie communes.

This is often true.  There is a management style which tries to leave responsibility up in the air.  Weak leaders hope their teams will self-organize.  This just doesn't work most of the time.  If it does, it is usually because a strong leader who wasn't the manager took charge.