Something for the weekend, sir?: Difference between revisions

Something for the weekend, sir? (view source)

Revision as of 16:35, 27 April 2021

1,658 bytes added , 27 April 2021

no edit summary

Amwelladmin

Bureaucrats, Interface administrators, Administrators

82,891

edits

@@ Line 20: / Line 20: @@
 *Permanent versus ephemeral
-A running theme in the [[JC]] is the distinction between top-down and bottom-up of organisation models. The former — we call them “[[modernist]]” — view organisations as complicated machines, controlled from a homunculus sitting at the bridge of some kind of  [[Cartesian theatre]]. [[Form]] determines function; the better regimented and disciplined the components of your contraption, the better it will navigate the market. The latter, which for want of a better world, I’ll call “[[Pragmatism|pragmatic]]”, sees the organisation as an organism, responding dynamically to an organic market which is a dynamic, incomplete, unpredictable energy, forever shape-shifting into new configurations in unexpected, and unexpectable, ways.
+A running theme in the [[JC]] is the distinction between top-down and bottom-up of organisation models.
-Practical control can only live at the points where the organisation interacts with its environment. The hey is to have talented, well-equipped people — [[subject matter expert]]s — to handle those interactions. The central control function has the time and space to take a holistic view and provide aspirational suggestions for how the subject matter expects should, all other things being equal, react; but real decision making is done by those experts at the edges, not the middle.
+The top down models are basically “[[modernist]]” in the sense of Le Corbusier — view organisations as [[complicated]] machines, ultimately directed and controlled by a homunculus sitting at the bridge in a kind of  [[Cartesian theatre]]. [[Form]]al design is important, and follows (centrally determined) function; the better regimented the parts of your contraption and the more efficient it is, the better it will navigate the market, which modernism regards basically as an infinitely complicated mathematical problem. Shortcomings in engineering and technology mean we cannot yet) fully solve that problem and that humans are still needed to make sure the machine operates as effectively as it can, but the further humans in the organisation get from that central executive function, the more they resemble a maintenance crew: their task is simply to ensure the orderly functioning of the plant. They are expensive and inconstant: the largest risk to the organisation is their error, thus the strategic direction of an organisation’s development is to eliminate where possible the need for human intervention. Where that is not possible, human activity should be constrained by rigid guidelines and policies to reduce the probability of mishap, and monitored and audited to record and correct those errors that do happen top prevent them happening again. To the modernist, malfunction and [[human error]] are overarching business risks.
-The [[JC]] is a pragmatist. Intellectually, the battle ought to have been won by the pragmatists long since, but the modernists keep devising new ways of getting themselves back into the game. The latest is by means of data and technology.
+Bottom-up models are, for want of a better world, “[[Pragmatism|pragmatic]]”. They see the organisation as a constantly changing organism operating with incomplete, ambiguous information in an environment that is also constantly in flux. To survive, firms must respond dynamically and imaginatively to unpredictable, non-linear interactions in the environment which is constantly shape-shifting into new configurations in unexpected, and unexpectable, ways. For a pragmatist, practical control must be exercised at the points where the organisation interacts with its environment. A firm should have talented, empowered, well-equipped people — [[subject matter expert]]s — to handle those interactions. Those in the central management function have a holistic view of the environment and can provide aspiration and tools to the [[subject matter expert]]s, but real decision making is done by those experts at the edges, not the the [[management function in the middle]].
-We are increasingly becoming obsessed with [[modernism]] as a prevailing dogma, about which few people talk directly, though there is much talk ''obliquely'' — John Kay’s {{br|Obliquity}}, for example. But [[systems theory]], [[complexity theory]], even, for all its obsession with algorithms, [[evolutionary theory]] line up with pragmatism:
+Intellectually, the battle ought to have been won by the pragmatists long since ([[systems theory]], [[complexity theory]], even, for all its obsession with algorithms, [[evolution]]ary theory line up with pragmatism), but modernism keeps devising new ways of getting itself back in the game, and over the last twenty years has been winning. What with the giant strides of the information revolution, the forthcoming [[singularity]], [[technological unemployment]], the abolition of boom and bust in 2005, and the effective management and distribution of financial risks through sophisticated financial derivatives (amirite?), it is easy to be lulled into a sense of security.
+Getting down amongst the [[elephants and turtles]] is not to everyone’s taste, but if you do it helps to see the planet on top of it more clearly. Here’s a distinction to draw: between things and interactions between things. ''[[Noun|Nouns]]'' versus ''[[verb]]s''.
 ====The illusion of permanence and the Ship of Theseus====