Yes, that relationship was doomed from the git-go….

You have your own ideas about organizations, and you’re more than right to loathe a lot of the politics and bullshit – I know I do – but a world comprised of “organizations of one”? That’s as much a fairy tale as a perfectly efficient bureaucratic utopia.

As for the article…well, as usual, I don’t really understand it. My world stops outside the lab. The only time I have to deal with “management” is when I have to fill out paperwork. I don’t even know what the organizational chart looks like and I don’t really care as long as I’m left alone in my office to think about science.

Sure. Most of what you’re talking about probably applies. But maybe academia is just slightly different. How do you draw a management diagram when half the people that control your life aren’t even w/in the institution?

For instance, my greatest fear isn’t from management, it’s from people I have to work with that aren’t necessarily higher than me in the local chain of command, but probably have influence outside of the institution with people who make decisions about outside funding. Now what?

I commented and applauded your well written article and you had to resort to snark

Sad, really.

Jeff.

Anyway, no exec I’ve ever met is the least bit comfortable ceding decision-making power, because most of them are motivated, at least in part, by anxiety. Honestly, I think if these guys (mostly guys) could operate on themselves, they’d push the surgeons out of the way and do it themselves. It takes real guts to turn decision-making power over to others. People with guts rarely make it to the C suite. They usually rock the boat way to early in their careers.

So that’s what you read into that, huh?

I never realized what a deconstructionist you were.

You reinforce the notion that the best organization is the organization of one. No politics, no bullshit, and you make exactly what you’re worth.

Jeff

Is a bureaucracy an organization gone bad? (I’m not sure that i’ve ever used bureaucracy without a negative connotation.)

Joe: Change is an incredibly important issue in this process. In short, change inherently generates fear in many people, and these days change is relentless. So managing change (see Morgan’s #7) is huge. I’ve always been especially aware of this point because I handle change pretty well – I’ve always LIKED change, in fact. So in environments where things are popping and people are freaking I tend to be good at staying focused. Your post (which I thought was dead-on when I first read it) couldn’t be more accurate.

The psychology of organizational behavior is incredibly complex (and centrally important – especially during times of change!). I recently wrote about this in Thriving in a Changing World, where I explored the need to help people better manage the change process so that they can make effective decisions.

You took it to a whole new level with this analysis. Very poignant!

Best,

Joe Brewer
Director, Cognitive Policy Works

You have almost precisely described the decision-making process in the last school district I worked in. The people at the top made all the decisions, and few of them had set foot in a classroom in the prior 20 years.