We at tosoc.org have to work for a living, if that was
not clear to you already. We are not rich and we get no income from
the blog. (You may have noticed the complete lack of advertising on
the blog so far.) We have very little time during the week to work
on the blog because we have to keep our jobs. Therefore tosoc.org
can only be a kind of weekend hobby at this point, but it is also
much more than that to us. It is a life's work in progress.
We mention this because even though we are not managers
and never have been, we have worked for many managers over the years.
We have come to see management and its systems in a sense as the
source of most of our economic problems. That is, our economic
problems are the result of bad management and bad managers in systems
that encourage these things. This applies to governments as well as
to private businesses. After all, what is government if it is not a
huge gang of managers, often bad ones?
The fact that our managers and management systems need
an overhaul and upgrade is why we have criticized management before
and will do so again today. It is also why a major part of the tosoc
plan is to improve the relationship between management and the
people. But that is not our focus today. Today we will just present
some stupid management tricks.
In general we have found that managers are simply
company or government hacks. Their reality is in the realm of
perception, not physical reality, and they get their realities from
their own managers. They just have to look good to their bosses;
they do not have to be good. Since another part of their job is to
manage people, they have a tendency to want to keep employees who
know how to look good, too, but who are not necessarily good at what
they do. The danger is that they and their fiefdoms of workers build
a dream world that has no relation to physical reality. That works
great until reality steps up and smacks the whole system in the face.
This happens in government more, and more seriously,
than in private business because the government is rich enough to
maintain its fantasies and delusions much longer than any private
concern. The most famous recent example in the US is the
implementation of the Affordable Care Act (the ACA, or "Obamacare"),
which was a great fairy tale until it was shredded by contact with
the real world. As another possible example, it seems likely that
the implementation of Dodd-Frank will suffer a similar fate. We
think that because the bill was created with all the serious
consideration and forethought that went into the ACA. Dodd-Franks'
likely failure will be quieter, however, because the public does not
have much interest in that fairy tale.
Aside from departure from reality and surrendering
one's critical faculties to one's boss, another important management
skill is damage control and managing expectations. This is the
process of turning lies and failure into a kind of truth and success.
For example, we feel quite sure that despite the ACA disaster, bits
of its intent will survive for a long time. Therefore, after a few
years and after the hubbub dies down, suddenly we will see reports
about the bits that survived, and we will be told what a great
success the ACA was.
At a lower and more personal level, here are some
examples of real-life stupid management tricks.
First up is "commitment." Managers always
want workers to commit to deadlines, even when the deadlines do not
make sense. As much as anything else, the purpose appears to be to
give the manager the moral high ground when workers fail to meet the
deadlines. In fact, sometimes it may be that managers intend for
workers to fail. If they need to buff up the paperwork to justify
getting rid of some personnel, "Failed to meet deadlines"
makes good copy.
Another side of "commitment" is that people
have lots of commitments—to their loved ones, friends, and
communities. Managers therefore sometimes demand that workers commit
to unreasonable deadlines as a sort of psychological test. Which
workers are willing to break their personal commitments in order to
meet their commitments to the company? Some managers feel that the
best employees are the ones who will stiff their own children in
order to climb the corporate ladder. It is not clear how
widespread this kind of thing is, but it raises the questions whether
this should be our vision of the future and whether we should make
leaders out of those who will break promises to their loved ones, and
encourage others to do the same, for the sake of an unfaithful
corporation. This may be a major contributor to the number of bad
managers that we have.
Second, there are kindergarten-style motivational
tactics, like gold stars or candy. One of the most childish and
offensive recognition programs in our experience had one of our
managers dropping candy bars in selected workers' chairs early in the
mornings. What did that really mean? If all the reward we got for
above-average productivity and extra effort was a candy bar, then
management must have thought we were overpaid anyway. It was the
kind of "reward" prograrm that would increase resentment of
workers toward management, not reduce it. Who can feel good about
working extra hard only to get a candy bar in return?
Then there is polishing the management resume. One
worker told us this story: A manager hired a worker for his group,
but there was nothing for the worker to do. (Note that this was a
high-tech position, not unionized.) When asked, the manager
unexpectedly told the truth about his motivation. As the manager's
twelfth employee, the manager had reached the "next level"
so far as his resume was concerned. Having managed at least twelve
workers, he could apply for the next higher-level management job
somewhere else.
If some of you readers out there are saying to
yourselves, "What's wrong with that? It was the smart thing to
do," then perhaps you are part of the problem. The problem is
that we may be selecting our leadership in this country from those
who are faithless to their own managers and obligations. This may be
another major contributor to the number of bad managers we have.
Finally, there is "ownership." Managers
these days often exhort their employees to "own it" or
"take ownership" or "act like you owned the company."
For many workers this may just drive home the fact that we workers
do not own anything of significance. Also, this could be interpreted
as saying that the workers get to own all the problems but none of
the wealth. We get nothing but our regular salaries in return for
"owning" the problems of the company and resolving them.
The real owners get a lot and they get to own everything, too.
And what are we supposed to say when we are asked to
"take ownership" of some problem and resolve it? Because
we need to keep our jobs, we cannot tell the truth and say "Look,
I will help you and work hard to resolve this problem because that is
my job, but please; I do not own anything here, especially not the
problems." Instead we have to lie like a manager. We have to
smile and say, "Sure! You can count on us to get it done!"
At the risk of being repetitious, when managers ask you
to "take ownership" of a problem, they are really asking if
you want to keep your job. If you say anything other than that you
will be happy to take ownership, then you are on your way to
unemployment. (Notice that they always want you to "own"
some unpleasant problem. They never ask you to take joyful ownership
of a pile of money.)
This has been just a smattering of stupid things that
managers do, things that increase the unexpressed anger and
resentment of the people. The danger is that this is a negative
feedback loop, where the workers lose faith in management because of
its lies and betrayals, and where, after having forced the workers to
lie to them and fail them, after firing the workers who tell them
truths they do not want to hear, management loses faith in the
workers. At that point, in a poisoned atmosphere of mutual mistrust,
there can be no real cooperation. Getting anything done will require
the use of force in some form, if only to say "work or starve!"
Our leaders may be taking us to just this kind of society.
One reason they might do that is that it is always
easier to rule than to lead. It is easier to give orders than to
negotiate and convince. It certainly makes life easier for the
managers, especially for lazy and stupid ones. On the surface, ruling
may also appear to be a more efficient and profitable way to run an
economy. However, history shows that leaders are more effective in
the long term than rulers, and that rulers tend to impoverish their
economies ... if anyone cares about the truth and the long term
anymore.
One very brief way to express tosoc.org's plans is to
say that we want the people to take the actions necessary so that no
manager can threaten anyone's livelihood. We should not allow our
managers to control our basic livelihoods. That is too much power to
put in professionally faithless hands.
The way capitalism
should be.
Socialism for the
socialists and capitalism for the capitalists.
TheOtherSideOfCapitalism
(admin@tosoc.org)
Copyright
© 2014 TheOtherSideOfCapitalism
