Found a good story in the Chicago Tribune  11/4/96 by Dale Dauten (spelling
errors are mine--no spell check) Does it apply to education?  How can we
improve our own programs using any of his ideas?  Does this fit education or
field schools or departments or ????
Chuck Ellenbaum
College of DuPage
[log in to unmask]
 
TITLE:  "Beware the business oxymoron of good management"
 
    "Understand just one truth--eight words--and all that has happened to
Corporate America in the past two decades will become clear.  The truth is
this:  There is no such thing as good management.
    There are good products, good employees, good customers, but no good
management.  Yes, there are people who are good at being managers, and yes, a
company needs management, but every minute devoted to managing is a wasted
minute.  Let's look at some common management minutes.
    (1)    Supervising:  The classic role of a manager is telling underlings
what to do and then checking up to make sure they do it.  This isn't 'real
work,' it's just making sure that real work happens.  And then there are
assistants to the checker-uppers and checker-upper seminars and national
checker-upper conferences to attend.
    The old organizational structure, based
on the military model, assumes that nobody wants to be there, nobody can be
trusted, and that redundancies are important because you never know when
large numbers of the force are going to turn up dead.
    On the other hand, the new organization finds the right employees, puts
them in the right system, and supervision is unnecessary.  In other words,
the time spent managing employees is one measure of the failure of hiring and
organizing.
    A retired banker, Tommy Ott, recently wrote to tell me of his Jell-O
Theory of Management.  He says:  'A cube of Jell-O in an open hand will stay
in place, but if a fist is clenched, the Jell-O will run out between the
fingers.  This also tends to be true in marriages and other relationships.'
    A leader sets a good example.  A manager makes rules.  If the example is
good enough, you don't need rules.  In other words, management fills a
leadership vacuum.
    (2)    Training:  The word 'training' is an insult.  You don't train
people;  you train dogs.  The thriving organization doesn't have dogs, it's
made up of cats and robots.  The robots do all the routine mindless work;
the cats are busy being curious and don't do what you tell them to, anyway.
    You don't train people, you educate them.  In fact, you don't educate
them, they educate themselves.  You put them in with their peers, and they
catch on.
    The biggest irony is the training fad 'empowerment.'  Take away
management, and what's left?  Empowerment.  Management is depowerment.
    (3)    Planning:  Dead organizations tell no lies.  The better the
planning, the less healthy the organization.  Surprise is a measure of growth.
    Leaders dream;  managers plan.  If the dream is big enough, planning is
impossible.  Dreamer companies are so creative that they will evolve in
unpredictable spurts.  The entire organization is a laboratory of constant
experimentation.  No one knows where the breakthroughs will come, or when.
    An if you can't plan, you can't budget.  In a healthy organization,
various groups compete for funds.  Employees become geniuses at finding money
for their projects and at implementing them cheaply.  They cut costs for the
sake of their projects, not for the sake of budgets.
    The upshot is this:  Thriving organizations aren't managed.  As soon as
you try to manage an organization, to get it under control, it has begun to
die.  The less time spent supervising, training, and planning, the better.
Which is another way of saying that the ideal time devoted to managing is
zero.  There is no such thing as good
management."