Pulling the Levers – The Management Illusion

A common thread of mine is that the formally managed aspects of business life often represent the 80% with only 20% of the value, and often there is a very important hidden element which actualy represents most of the real value. (I say something to that effect in the manifesto.) In Dr Willis on-line book the Paradox of Progress, he laments the fact that management are in fact completely unaware of the value and success of semi-autonomous distributed “community” workers, and that this becomes obvious when technology enables more centralised control to stifle the essential autonomy. [Quote] It would be nice to think that community staff enjoy this freedom because those in authority realise its value. But it is clear that this is not the case. The new era of computer technology is demonstrating that this freedom and richness has not arisen by design, but by default. It is no wise insight that has recognized its ultimate necessity and value. It is simply that nobody has managed to find a way of extending the reach of central control out into the wilderness. – Until now. [Unquote]

I think I said in the introduction to my dissertation all those (12?) years ago “There is a perception that Information Technology, which pervades our operation and our deliverables, far from increasing flexibility, creates new constraints”. Nothing new under the sun.

The rest of Chapter 4 is a litany of examples of the political correctness of rationally jutifiable things we ought to do, and the tacit understanding that anyone who actually did try to do would be considered insane. Do as I do, not as I say, in action. [Quote] THE UNSPOKEN AGREEMENT TO PRETEND TO DO THE IMPOSSIBLE – We have a double standard here which is going to get worse as society gets more and more tightly organised [electronically integrated ? – I’d say] unless we find a way of giving the corporate mind of society the equivalent of common sense.[Unquote]

Almost finished this book on-line now and it is an excellent read, peppered with little anecdotal gems from a GP’s life, bags of common sense, plenty of black wit and, for me, a finger right on the pulse of how the lie of logical positivism is going to find its come-uppance in the world of mass ICT (or gawd ‘elp us.)

[Quote] It is already quite obvious from a personal perspective that technology and rules are a poor substitute for common sense. The question remains how long it will be before this becomes obvious from the media scale perspective as well, and how far things will have deteriorated by then.[Unquote] The real trouble is [Quote] GENERALISTS MUST LIE – Yes. Generalists must lie. Controlled lying, or slippage, is the only means we have of coping with the complexity and the uncertainty of life. The slippage which our minds permit, the subtle distortion of the literal reality of the world, is not a failing but a necessary strength.[Unquote]

Dr James Willis

Dr James Willis – Author of “The Paradox of Progress” and “Friends in Low Places”. Writing in a medical / healthcare context, but spot on the main theme of recoiling from hyper-rationalism.

[Quote] Most of all we need to keep technology in its proper place, as the servant of the individual person, not the master. To make use of its enormous potential to enhance life. Whilst protecting ourselves from its enormous potential to diminish and imprison us.[Unquote] Conclusion – The Paradox of Progress – 1998

[Quote] James Willis’ book says something so essential and vital that it needs to be shouted from skyscrapers. It also, however, is about something as simple as the emperor wearing no clothes. This is that a denial that life-as-it-is-lived is wonderfully, hopelessly, chaotic and complex – is not just doomed to failure, but will inevitably cause untold damage. Our society is not only attempting to deny, but to constrain life to become structured, controllable, controlled. There seems to be an insane belief that life can be controlled by ticking boxes, by diligently reading instructions, before doing anything, thinking anything, being anything.[Unquote] Gillie Bolton’s review of “Friends in Low Places” – Medical Humanities, June 2002. WOW!!!

He also says “Rules can never describe life, they can only set limits” Very evocative of the phrasing I used here !!! [Quote] …. scientific truth brings little except a few physical boundary conditions. [Unquote]

Also has a link to David Boyles Guardian article “You Can Count Me Out – The Tyranny of Numbers”. And also to Andrew Marr’s “Painting by Numbers” Both of which I seem to recall blogging earlier ?

Robert Pirsig was a major influence says Willis in the December 2000 issue of Medical Humanities in the series Medicine through the Novel.

Dithyramb

Dithyramb – Today’s word. Nietzsche keeps using it, along with other allusions to Dionysus, and today I find it used by Socrates in his dialogue with Phaedrus as recorded by Plato. A frenzied, passionate, enthusiastic, exhalted, inspired, wild, irregular piece of discourse, from the form of the original passionate choric poems and dance in praise of Dionysus. [I’m expecting to find myself coming full circle back to Pirsig any day soon.]

[Quote]
Socrates : …… And now, dear Phaedrus, I shall pause for an instant to ask whether you do not think me, as I appear to myself, inspired?
Phaedrus : Yes, Socrates, you seem to have a very unusual flow of words.
Socrates : Listen to me, ….. so that you must not wonder, if, as I proceed, I appear to be in a divine fury, for already I am getting into dithyrambics.
Phaedrus : Nothing can be truer.
Socrates : The responsibility rests with you. But hear what follows, and perhaps the fit may be averted; all is in their hands above. I will go on talking to my youth. Listen ….
Unquote]

Talking to my youth ? Hmmm.

Some notes for later.
Socrates : “Birds of a feather, flock together”
Socrates : “Your love of discourse, Phaedrus, is superhuman.”
Socrates : “…. ceteris paribus ….”
Socrates : “I told a lie when I said that the beloved ought to accept the non-lover when he might have the lover, because the one is sane, and the other mad. It might be so if madness were simply an evil; but there is also a madness which is a divine gift, and the source of the chiefest blessings granted to men. For prophecy is a madness, …”
Socrates : “There will be more reason in appealing to the ancient inventors of names, who would never have connected prophecy (mantike) which foretells the future and is the noblest of arts, with madness (manike), or called them both by the same name, if they had deemed madness to be a disgrace or dishonour – they must have thought that there was an inspired madness which was a noble thing; for the two words, mantike and manike, are really the same, and the letter t is only a modern and tasteless insertion. And this is confirmed by the name which was given by them to the rational investigation of futurity, whether made by the help of birds or of other signs-this, for as much as it is an art which supplies from the reasoning faculty mind (nous) and information (istoria) to human thought (oiesis) they originally termed oionoistike, but the word has been lately altered and made sonorous by the modern introduction of the letter Omega (oionoistike and oionistike), and in proportion prophecy (mantike) is more perfect and august than augury, both in name and fact, in the same proportion, as the ancients testify, is madness superior to a sane mind (sophrosune) for the one is only of human, but the other of divine origin.”
Socrates : “I am myself a great lover of these processes of division and generalization; they help me to speak and to think.”
Socrates : ” ….. there seem to be a great many holes in their web.”
Socrates : “The perfection which is required of the finished orator is, or rather must be, like the perfection of anything else; partly given by nature, but may also be assisted by art.”

Referral Feedback Loops

Referral Feedback Loops – I’ve posted this worry a couple of times before, [here] & [here] about track-backs and referral linkings potentially causing unstoppable feedback loops. My link to you creates a link to me, creates a link to you, creates a link to me, etc …Seems it has really happened here with Stephen Downes referral script.

Warm Fuzzies

Warm Fuzzies – A paper by Michael Meier Published in 1993 on the Pirsig / MOQ site, claims to be about those warm fuzzy desires that get omitted from software “specifications”. Actually it doesn’t go far enough IMHO, most of the anecdotal “warm fuzzies” (like the feel / balance of a hand-tool) are ones that could easily be incorporated into “specifications”, but the main point is cool. This particular quote is very apt in the context of my current day-job.

[Quote]
Our Vision

If we want our clients to be happy with their systems
If we want to take ourselves out of a situation in which we can’t be successful
If we want to maximize the contribution of everyone concerned

then, I believe, we have only one viable alternative. We must make it possible for our clients to assemble their own systems. We must provide them with system Leggo? blocks that can be combined and recombined without programming.
[Unquote]

All part of this monolithic / enterprise equals bad, fragmented / flexible / peer-to-peer equals good as per this recent blog.