Alex--as I read your honest response to Ben's posting, it occurred to me
what my problem was with Ben's thought, and your response.
I have a problem with the criticism of management. Management is not the
problem. The system, and the people in the system, are the problems you
are describing. There are great people--great managers--working in
terrible systems. There are terrible managers, dysfunctional or untrained
people, working in terrible and wonderful systems. Mostly, there are
dysfunctional systems, poorly trained managers and laborers who look for
someone to blame. As Barry Oshrie has said, the problem includes the
"tops, bottoms and middles."
I've been a manager--I worked in that capacity for many years--and I've
been supervised by managers. Often, I had much more schooling and
training as a manager than those for whom I worked. Frequently my
training and schooling was inappropriate, or just plain wrong.
There was a time in my management days that, if Ben had ignored me and
worked with employees, I might have had to fire him (if I was unable to
enlist him on my time). On the other hand, I've done just as he's
suggested many times. Several years ago, I began divesting myself of the
power you describe in your message, and instead encouraged the growing
autonomy and responsibility of those people who worked under my
supervision. My boss and I both were very capable of sending power down,
along with authority and responsibility. Ironically, I worked myself out
of a job (which was an obvious consequence--but unimportant compared to
the blossoming I witnessed among those whom I managed). Not all managers
are ready to lose their jobs. It isn't always power that people are
hanging onto--it is fear-based survival that they are hanging onto.
The Peter Principle describes how people rise to their level of
incompetence in an organization. This is a systemic problem. At the
point of incompetence, controlling through authority is sometimes the only
way some people can find to save their job.
regards,
Doc
Alexandra Jackson wrote:
> It is difficult to get management to give up or transform their power.
> They are very threatened by flattening out the heirarchy in LO. They are
> the keeper and distributor of knowledge in a heirarchy. They can weild
> great say in how one advances in an organization. It is difficult to
> get management to move out of their comfort zone when they don't see the
> benefit. It is also hard to teach someone something new if the old way
> is working for them. Some people change because of discomfort.
> Management is also not used to being held accountable by their
> supervisees. they are used to being the expert and the one who teaches
> or shows the supervisee, not the other way around. If upper management
> isn't up to date on curent status and wants to remain status quo it will
> be very difficult to transition. It takes a strong leader who can allow
> others to develop their leadership skills while allowing the old
> leadership a chance to catch on and change or ease out of the picture.
-- "We cannot do great things in life; we can only do small things with great love." -Mother TeresaThresholds--developing critical skills for living organizations Richard C. "Doc" Holloway Olympia, WA ICQ# 10849650 Please visit our new website, still at <http://www.thresholds.com/> <mailto:learnshops@thresholds.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>