Why We're Screwed:The Failure Of Management

George Corneliussen

There is no such thing as a system run by humans that is trouble-free. The reason is simple; humans are not capable of perpetual perfection. Every social, business, or political system created by humans requires constant maintenance in order to move forward in a universally positive direction.

Believe it or not, this is actually good news. The reason being that it proves that we have identified the flaws inherent in us and have devised a system to deal with those imperfections in a way that slows them down enough to allow us to progress as a society. As long as we maintain this system, it works as near to perfection as we humans are capable of getting . This system has a name; that name is management.

MANAGEMENT ( the persons who manage a business or institution ). A simple enough definiton, but maybe it's time we refreshed our memories a little and asked ourselves, "What does the word "manage" mean ?".

MANAGE ( To guide or handle with skill or authority; control; direct )

Think about this, a manager is never in the positon of creating the system they manage. In every single case, a manager is handed a pre-existing system ( a system that also exists for a stated purpose ). The job of the manager is to analyze problems that threaten the system and predict possible threats to the system in the future.

If you accept this defintion of a manager, apply it to our current political landscape and evaluate how well it is being managed. If you do not allow the job you hold or the political beliefs you hold to influence your evaluation ( in other words evaluate it as if you were a manager yourself ), you will see some very telltale signs of less than perfect management.

Politically speaking, for all intent and purpose, we are not being managed well. Now, before you either thump your chest or level your "shootin' iron" in response to this remark, put yourself in the nonparitsan position of evaluating the quality of the way we are currently being managed. This is vital because, in the end, a system is either managed well or it disintegrates. Any partisan reasons for making management decisions are signs of bad management, simply because they are self-serving and not aimed at improving the system itself.

While the president and vice-president are the upper management in our political lives, all elected officials are part of the management team. This includes all Republicans,Democrats, and Independents.

As we speak, we, as a nation, appear to have a great amount of disagreement with the way our upper management team is maintaining the system that has been entrusted to it. If our response to that disagreement is to replace our upper management with a new team, what will we use as guidelines for picking a new management team ?

Remember, we are managers assigned the task of evaluating why our current upper management team has failed us . If we simply replace them without first analyzing why they failed, we will guarantee that whatever problems we currently have in our system will reappear in short order. A good manager knows that replacing people without addressing the reason why they were replaced sends a signal to the system being managed that whatever problems exist in the system are acceptable and condoned.

So, in nonpartisan, nuts-and-bolts terms, what is it that we find unacceptable in our current upper management team ? From my self-elected position, I see the answer as one glaring error that encompasses all of our system's current problems:

Loss of focus on the basic stated goal of our system:

Even though we pride ourselves on being a diverse nation, the only way that diversity can exist and still provide for a situation in which we exist as a single nation is for the main focus of our upper management team to maintain and promote a single goal that can be embraced by the diverse factions of our system ( our nation cannot exist without a shared goal ).

Simply put, there has to be something we all think is more important than just what we want as individuals. That something cannot be an " I got mine; the hell with you " philosophy. A good manager knows this. A good manager also knows that one of the clues that they are on the right track is when policies they implement affect them personally, as well as the people they are managing.

Put more simply, the way to motivate diverse groups toward a common goal is to implement rules that apply to every single person in the system, including all levels of management. This creates the ultimate in motivational situations, " the fair situation ". In a fair situation, all groups are willing to compromise in order to achieve a greater good.

The failure of our current politcal upper management team has been in the loss of promoting a set of rules that apply to everyone in the system equally. Arguing why they did this will not remove or solve the problem.

As the group of people who will pick our system's ( aka nation's ) next upper management team, what steps will we take to ensure that the mistakes of the present team are not simply repackaged into a new suit of clothes ?

As far as I can tell, the only way we can promote the basic value "fairness", that is the core of our system, to our next upper management team is for us to show them by example ( which , by the way, is how a good manager achieves results ). What impact on our future upper management team would we have if we showed them, by example, just how fair we ourselves are capable of being ? Currently, greed is ahead of fairness as our system's basic rule of management. The question to ask ourselves is, " Do we want greed to supersede fairness as the basic rule of management in our system ? ". Think hard before you answer and decide if you are in favor of an " I got mine; the hell with you" philosophy of management or an " Everyone give a little, so we all can get a lot " philosophy as the core of our system. The decision you make today will be reflected directly in the upper management team we hire in 2008.